Al Kaabi, a curse or a bless?

Since the fashion nowadays is Emiratis vs Expats topics I decided to write about it in a different way, about the spark that was started by Dr. Ali Al Kaabi.

Al Kaabi is the most dramatic minister the UAE ever had. Where else you'd find a young minister (36 yo) wearing those sporty clothes on duty ?


I bet that he would be happy to know that he is now in wikipedia. That is what I found there "He was appointed in 2004 on the same day of the president Shiekh Zayed's death. He was educated at the Harvard University. He follows a very pro-emiratisation policy"


I remember when he was first appointed most of the people had the impression that he has strong connection with the royal family since he was chosen at a young age and brought from no where (he was actually working in the military and one of the few who graduated from Sandhurst Royal military College). I heard that he is Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed friend.


What he has done since he took his job in October 2004 is more than what the UAE labourer ministers have done in the past 30 years. Many hate him specifically from the expats side while many others like him.

He started his first war with the ministry employees. The first thing he had in his mind is to trace all the visa gangs in the ministry. He forced them to have no commericial licenses and gave the choice to accept his decision or resign. Even one of my friends, whose relatives work in the ministry, said that Al Kaabi accused them for being dishonest to the country. He had a hard time that time, journalist attacked his policy but he moved on.


to be continued ...

You are not to speak III (real time)

What I said isn't a myth after all (for anyone who doubted).

Dr. Mohammed Abdulla Al Roken whom I talked about in "You are not to speak II" on Friday, July 07, 2006 was arrested on the 26th of August.

It was published in Amnesty International and I think it was published couple of weeks ago in the UAE Community Blog.

Let me give you a feedback of what you don't know about what happened.

It was announced in Al Jazeera news channel and Al Hewar channel. It was published in Al Watan newspaper and couple of writers in Arabic foreign newspaper wrote about it. It was published also in Front Line Defenders of Human Rights defender website but It wasn't published at all in the UAE. Every wondered why? LOL.

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE250072006?open&of=ENG-ARE
http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/news/3318
http://www.hrinfo.net/press/2006/pr0828.shtml

He was released after two days. The state security took his passport and threatened him not to talk to the media or meet any Emirati activitist, his phone is censored and his house is monitored until now

I translated some of what was written in the independent "Emirates Media & Studies Center" http://www.emasc.com/

The state security said that they would release him if he stopped his human rights activities and forced him to sign on papers he has no idea about. Some of the famous State Security man (they did not mention his name) said that they will ruin his reputation. He said that the court and police would obey to anything he says.

They said that they would accuse him of committing adultery with a German woman whom he met in 27th of July to organize a human rights forum. They arrested him the first time on August because he talked to the French Agency about how bad human rights situation turned into in the UAE.

The last thing I would say is that this guy would win a seat easily in our parliament if we had real elections.

Emirates Reuters online again

I wasnt really on a mood to write in this blogg after the Israel/Lebanon war. So I decided to give myself a holiday.

I was trying to escape from some of the things in Dubai but they totally ruined it so I had to go back to Dubai. Fortunatly after a week I went to perfrom Omrah in Mecca.