While watching television, Jawad Fairuz realized that he no longer had a country.
“I was on a short trip to London when the Interior Ministry decided to revoke the nationality of people in the opposition. They read out 31 names on TV. Mine was one. It was such a big shock because I never called for the overthrow of the government,” Fairuz, a former politician in Bahrain’s parliament, told DW.
That was in November 2012. Fairuz resigned from parliament in protest over the killing of protesters by security forces during the so-called Arab Spring. He was arrested, tortured and then had his citizenship revoked. And he was not alone. Bahraini authorities would eventually withdraw citizenship from approximately 990 people.
Left stateless, Fairuz applied for asylum, became a British citizen and now runs the organization Salaam for Democracy and Human Rights. But they worry that what happened to them is going to happen to many more Bahrainis as a result of the Iran war.
weaponizing citizenship
The war began in late February when Israel and the US attacked Iran. But apart from Israel, it was Gulf countries like Bahrain, Oman, UAE and Saudi Arabia that Iran targeted in response.
Bahrain is in a particularly difficult situation politically. Like other Gulf countries, the country is a monarchy and represses most political dissent. But unlike other Gulf countries, Bahrain’s royal family is Sunni, while estimates suggest the majority of the population – slightly more than 50% – is Shia.
Iran is a Shia theocracy and in March, around 250 people were arrested in Bahrain who allegedly posted anti-war messages online, expressed “sympathy” with Iran or participated in demonstrations. Bahrain says it has also arrested spies working for Iran. Then, in late April, the government said it would review the citizenship of any person “loyal” to the country. Fairuz believes Bahrain is re-weaponizing citizenship for security reasons, but also because authorities know they can use it to suppress dissent.
“Minorities accused of collaborating with Iran are routinely being rounded up,” says another Bahraini who lives in the US but whose family lives in Bahrain, which is why he can only comment anonymously. “This has been confirmed in the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait, but it is likely to happen across the board. These dynamics affect a whole range of different communities – so not just Shia minorities but also citizens of Persian origin, including Sunnis,” he said.
Kuwait may be one of the worst offenders. In March 2024, the Kuwaiti government launched a campaign to revoke citizenships and sources say it is highly likely that, since then, more than 70,000 Kuwaitis have lost their nationality. The real number may be as high as 300,000 as dependents such as wives, children or grandchildren also lose Kuwaiti citizenship.
If correct, this is approximately one fifth of the original population, as there are only 1.56 million Kuwaiti citizens. In mid-April, Kuwait issued another set of changes to its citizenship law and more than 2,000 people lost Kuwaiti nationality.
“Kuwait’s evolving nationality system shows how citizenship can be transformed into a political instrument of control,” the research network Global Citizenship Observatory wrote in an article.2026 report on kuwait.
“It is potentially too early to identify whether there is an increased trend related to the recent conflict with Iran,” says Thomas McGee, an expert at the Observatory on the Middle East. “What we are seeing now is that many Gulf countries are potentially using the Iran war as a justification to intensify existing citizenship and nationality controls, rather than inventing this practice from the beginning.”
Another Gulf state, Oman, changed its citizenship laws in February 2025. Parts of the law state that Omani nationality can be withdrawn if citizens have “committed any verbal or physical offense against the Omani Sultanate or the Sultan himself” or have joined any organization that could harm the country.
Rights activists argue that because there is no definition of those acts or organizations, the government can use the law against its opponents.
The UAE was recently accused of treating Iranians living there in a similar manner. Some found that their residence permits had been cancelled. Emirati officials deny this, saying the ex-pats were part of their community – but media outlets love it new York Times Interviewed Iranians whose permits had been revoked.
Similar action has been warned in Iran also. Last week, a politician there threatened to strip expatriate Iranians of their citizenship if they were seen collaborating with “hostile countries.”
Europe and America also use citizenship as a tool
This type of activity is not limited to the Middle East. Last week, the Trump administration in the US once again pressured its Justice Department to denaturalize hundreds of Americans and issued New guidelines on checking political opinions of people seeking residence.
last year Human Rights Watch criticized a leak working Paper On migration by conservative political parties in Germany. It suggested that dual citizens could be stripped of their German passports if they were deemed “supporters of terrorism, anti-Semites and extremists”.
Experts say citizenship is being weaponized because over the past two decades it has become more acceptable to treat it as a privilege, not a right.
This was not the case after World War II, when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was first written. Article 15 states that nationality is a fundamental human right and was partly a response to the Nazis rendering thousands of Jews and political opponents stateless with their 1933 “denaturalization law”.
“States have been weaponizing citizenship for a long time,” says Lindsey Kingston, a professor of international human rights at Webster University in Missouri. “But the nature of that weaponization is changing.”
A study of 2022 The Global Citizenship Observatory and the Netherlands-based Institute for Statelessness and Inclusion, or ISI, found that in the two decades following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, “the use and scope of citizenship revocations on security grounds has increased.”
“Terrorist attacks like 9/11 have caused many people to rethink ideas about legal nationality,” Kingston told DW. “People began to think of citizenship as permanent, something that had to be earned and constantly justified.”
It became more acceptable to take away a person’s citizenship, she says, “even when it was a blatant violation of human rights laws.”
Iran had influence
Although experts say the weaponization of the citizenry is nothing new, the situation in Iran is getting worse.
Analysts at the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace say recovery in the Gulf countries has slowed as a result of the conflict. Discussed in early April. “The war has upset the delicate balance emerging between controlled reform and political stability in the Gulf,” he wrote.
Observers say this also includes the weaponization of the citizenry.
“Military conflict could be a catalyst,” confirms Luc van der Baaren, a legal researcher at the European University Institute who focuses on citizenship law. “An old ground for stripping citizenship is treason and this argument is now being applied in some Gulf countries.” He said that the same has been seen in Russia and Ukraine also.
Additionally, citizenship policies often follow strong regional patterns,” the researcher told DW. “Countries adopt similar approaches to their neighbors, which may explain recent changes in Arab Gulf countries.”
ISI co-director Amal de Chikera believes it is important to look at the bigger picture.
“If you look at Bahrain, there was an increase in incidents of citizenship stripping after 2013 and there was a lot of international pressure that the Bahraini government should correct those mistakes,” he explains. “And he completed the course somewhat correctly.”
Now it seems that Bahrain is going back to that practice. But, as de Chiqueira argues, this may not be surprising.
“I think a broader lens is needed,” he argues. “With Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, its invasion of Lebanon, and the US and Israeli attacks on Iran, the way Western countries have tried to punish Israel to some extent and their unwillingness to hold the US accountable, we are seeing a flouting of international law,” he told DW.
The International Court of Justice in the Netherlands is investigating Israel’s conduct in Gaza since South Africa launched a case in December 2023, alleging it amounts to genocide. Israel’s conduct in the war has been considered genocide by many international rights organizations and a United Nations commission. Israel denies this.
De Chiqueira thinks it’s all connected: “In a world where international law means nothing, the Bahraini government has probably calculated that it can get away with it again.”
Edited by: Rob Mudge