Reuters, DUBAI
|
By Sami Aboudi

Ahmed, a Lebanese
worker living in the United Arab Emirates, closed down his Facebook
page and started to shun some of his compatriots.

His
intention was to sever all links to people associated with Lebanon’s
Hezbollah after Gulf Arab states classified the Shi’ite Muslim
organization as a terrorist group.

Ahmed, a medical worker in his early 50s who declined to give his full name, is not alone.

Anxiety
and apprehension are unsettling many of the up to 400,000 Lebanese
workers living in the Gulf after last month’s announcement by the Gulf
Cooperation Council – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain,
Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.

The rich
states, where Lebanese have worked for generations, some achieving
wealth and influence, have threatened to imprison and expel anyone
linked to the Iranian-allied group that fights in support of President
Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s civil war.

The
GCC move on Hezbollah is part of a struggle pitting Sunni Saudi Arabia
against Shi’ite regional heavyweight Iran. The rivals back different
factions in Lebanon where Hezbollah wields enormous political influence
as well as having a powerful military wing.

Hassan
Elian, who heads an association campaigning for Lebanese deportees from
the Gulf, said about 100 had been ejected from Bahrain, Kuwait and the
UAE in the past two months. There are no official figures to corroborate
this.

While that total may
appear small, the expulsions caused widespread fears amongst Lebanese
expatriates, who send back about $2.5 billion to Lebanon a year, that
they are vulnerable.

Some have
expressed worries that they might not be expelled but their residency
permits might not be renewed if they are suspected of being sympathetic
to Hezbollah.

Questioned about
the possibility of further expulsion of Lebanese workers from GCC
countries because of their relationship with Hezbollah, a Lebanese
foreign ministry official said the Beirut government was following the
matter.

“PEOPLE ARE AFRAID”

Relations
between Lebanon and Saudi Arabia have been plunged into crisis since
Riyadh halted $3 billion in aid to the Lebanese army – a response to the
Beirut government’s failure to condemn attacks on Saudi diplomatic
missions in Iran.

The row raised
concern for Lebanon’s political and economic stability by exacerbating
tensions between its Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims and had already prompted
concerns about the livelihoods of Lebanese expatriates in the Gulf.

It is not just Shi’ite Lebanese who feel under scrutiny.

“We
have no political activity, but we do support Hezbollah because it is a
resistance movement against Israel,” said Hassan, a civil servant
working in Kuwait, one of only a few Lebanese who agreed to comment for
this article.

“Many Lebanese are worried because of the recent measures,” Hassan, who asked that his family name not be used, told Reuters.

Hassan
said some have refrained from buying new possessions because of fears
for the future, while others planned to send their families home.

Deportees
declined to be interviewed, fearful for relatives still in the Gulf or
hoping to return when tensions between Lebanon and the GCC calm down.

Ahmed,
the medic, said he knows other people who have closed their Facebook
accounts because they were afraid that they would be targeted for being
friends with someone from Hezbollah.

“People
are afraid, and I am afraid too,” said Ahmed. “We would love to go back
to Lebanon, but there are no jobs, especially now when so many refugees
are jostling for work.”

“I have recently renewed my residency without any problem, but I still don’t feel safe,” he added.

In
Lebanon, stories circulate about cases of Lebanese expelled over their
relatives’ social media posts deemed to show sympathy for Hezbollah.

For
the Lebanese expatriate community, expulsion means leaving a job in the
most stable and prosperous region in the Arab world and loss of income,
usually used to support poorer extended family members back home.

Deportation also means returning to a country overburdened with Syrian refugees and where jobs are hard to find.

LACK OF CLARITY

Adding
to the atmosphere of fear pervading the Lebanese expatriate community
working in the Gulf is a lack of clarity about what sort of information
is viewed by the authorities as evidence of links to or sympathy with
Hezbollah.

Some worry the information used could be arbitrary – such as the websites or television channels their families use.

Expatriates
say the broad warning issued by the Saudi interior ministry in a
message carried by state news agency SPA in March makes anyone subject
to punishment, regardless of their nationality or faith.

Bahrain
last month deported several Lebanese residents suspected of links to or
supportive of Hezbollah, while Kuwaiti media has said that 11 Lebanese
and three Iraqis also suspected of belonging to Hezbollah were expelled.

There have been no official reports of deportations from either Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar or Oman.

Saudi
Arabia has told its citizens that anyone with Hezbollah links, or who
supports or sympathizes with the group faces punishment, including
deportation for expatriates.[nL5N16L0VD]

Reinforcing
that message, Saudi authorities last month detained a local Shi’ite
cleric, Sheikh Hussein al-Radhi, after he publicly praised Hezbollah
leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Analysts
said the GCC decision to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist group was
aimed primarily at choking off financial interests in the Gulf
controlled by the group which the GCC has blamed for working against
them in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.

The GCC had already imposed sanctions on Hezbollah after it entered Syria’s war to fight with President Assad.

GCC
Secretary-General Abdullatif al-Zayani said the council would “take the
necessary measures to implement its decision … based on
anti-terrorism laws applied in the GCC and similar international laws”.

Zayani
did not specify what action might follow, but Saudi Arabia, the biggest
power in the grouping, before the announcement said it had blacklisted
four companies and three Lebanese men for having links to Hezbollah.

The
GCC accused Hezbollah of committing “hostile acts” against GCC states,
including recruiting young men to carry out “terrorist attacks,
smuggling weapons and explosives, stirring up sedition and incitement to
chaos and violence”.

(Additional reporting by Mahmoud Harby in Kuwait, Laila Bassam in
Lebanon, Angus McDowall in Riyadh and Ali Abdelaty in Cairo; writing by
Sami Aboudi; editing by William Maclean and Peter Millership)