The United Arab Emirates: Citizens with No Native Country

Cairo on: December 4, 2007

The United Arab Emirates: Citizens with No Native Country

the Arab Program for Human Rights Activists (APHRA) follows up the different dimensions and developments of the people "with no nationality" in the Arab gulf states, the phenomenon that has no equivalent in either developed or developing countries. In fact there is no precise estimation of this phenomenon. But this is mainly due to information obscuring imposed by governments.
The "people-with-no-nationality" phenomenon causes several bad effects to both people with and without nationality in these countries. It, therefore, needs to investigate for determining its causes and finding solutions. For causes, it is clear that political reasons, namely religious politics conflicts, lie behind this phenomenon.
As the Arab Program for Human Rights Activists (APHRA) observes this phenomenon, it confirms that it utterly contradicts with all international human rights conventions. "People with no nationality" are lacking identity or legal protection by any state. They are deprived of all rights, freedoms or privileges. While alive in practice, they dead in law. They have no documents and can not document their marriages, properties. They do not even have any properties. In addition, they are deprived of the rights to work, free education, medical care, etc.
In short those people are deprived of the globally acknowledged right to have the nationality of the countries in which they and their ancestors were born. According to the international law, people acquire the nationality of the countries in which they are born or the nationality of their parents or that of the country in which they reside for certain time periods (only fives years in some cases). All these requirements are met by the "people with no nationality" in the United Arab Emirates. The least of requirements is that they have documents that prove that they were citizens of the individual emirates before the political unification. Yet, the federal state did not take these documents seriously. This negation clearly contradicts with the universal declaration of human rights that states in article 15 that "every individual has the right to have a specific nationality and that individuals can not be deprived of the rights to have or change nationality". It also contradicts with article 3/24 of the international covenant on civil and political rights. Furthermore, this negation also conflicts with the federal constitution that "gives all citizens the nationality of the United Arab Emirates according to the law, provides them with the due protection beyond borders in accordance with observed international rules and regulations, and states that nationality can not be dropped unless in the exceptional cases determined by law".
Being moved by the suffering of this big group of people in different gulf Arab states, APHRA requests authorities in the United Arab Emirates to offer effective and decisive solutions to this enduring problem so as to let those people enjoy the rights and freedoms guaranteed by all international human rights conventions, namely by giving them the nationality of the United Arab Emirates.
APHRA also appeals to all concerned Arab and international organizations, mainly United Nations, to join forces to put an end to the suffering of this group of people by applying the international human rights conventions giving them the nationality of the states in which they live.

Finally APHRA asks all human rights organizations all over the world to adopt this issue in the future until these people are given the nationality of the states in which they live.