other Emiratis were affected by the same decree, without giving any names.74 Prior to this, the siblings were placed under a travel ban, but this decision left them stateless, depriving them of access to various services and opportunities, which has a detrimental impact on the fulfilment of their human rights. UN experts shared their concern about these citizenship revocations in a communication in April 2016, requesting the UAE authorities to provide details on the legal basis for revoking the citizenship of al-Siddiq’s three children.75 In their response, the UAE authorities stated that: The citizenship of the aforementioned persons was withdrawn pursuant to the provisions of the Nationality and Passports Act, which provides for naturalisation through affiliation. Given that the children of Mr al-Siddiq were granted citizenship after citizenship was granted to their father, the legal justification for the citizenship of his children lapsed when the father’s citizenship was revoked in accordance with the constitutional and legislative provisions. Hence, their citizenship was revoked.76 The authorities however continued to refuse to provide the siblings with an official decree that would serve as proof of their statelessness. Additionally, they did not publish the revocation of their citizenship in the Official Gazette. Likewise, Abdulsalam al-Marzooqi’s six children, Salman, Hamdan, Omran, Jenan, Eman and Bayan, got their citizenship revoked in early 2017. While Bayan remained in the UAE for her studies, al Marzooqi’s five other children are in the US with their mother since July 2016. They are currently stateless, as their Emirati citizenship was revoked after their father’s revocation of citizenship. In early January 2017, they received a call from the Nationality and Passports Department at the Ministry of Interior in Abu Dhabi, requesting them to bring all the children’s identity documents. However, as they were in the US, they could not do so. The officers then insisted that Bayan, who was still in the UAE, bring all the documents herself. Knowing that the authorities were likely to confiscate the documents, as they had done so for other activists and their families, they refused. Despite their refusal, Bayan was called by the authorities and asked to come to the office with the documents. When she declined, she was warned that if she did not comply, she would lose her UAE citizenship and her name would be circulated to all government departments, meaning that any attempt to access government services would lead to the confiscation of her ID. On 8 August 2017, during a visit to her father in prison, Bayan handed over her ID as usual. However, after the visit, the authorities refused to return her card, leaving her without an ID and without a possibility to visit her father again. Since then, none of the children were able to renew any of their identity documents, which led them to believe that they were one of the families whose nationalities had been stripped. Ibid. Communication from UN Special Procedures, AL ARE 1/2016, 20 April 2016, https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=13812 (accessed on 2 May 2024). 76 Permanent Mission of the United Arab Emirates in Geneva, State response, 20 June 2016, https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadFile?gId=32552 (accessed on 2 May 2024). 74 75 17 Citizenship stripping in the UAE