The UAE is considered one of the safest places in the world. Its domestic and foreign policies and the globally-recognised hospitality of its people and flexibility of the laws have made it an attractive destination for business, work and tourism.
But as organised crime transcends borders, like the terrorist crime committed by Israel's Mossad against a senior official in Dubai last month, it is perhaps time to review some of those regulations to ensure security and deter criminals from using our soil to carry out their activities.
Mahmoud Al Mabhouh's killers used European passports for obvious reasons. The question about whether those documents were genuine or fake is a side issue.
The main issue is that those passports were used because European nationals, among the nationals of 34 nations that include the US, Canada and Australia, entered the country without the need for a pre-arranged visa. Few countries in the West continue to do that, actually. Some do, but they photograph and fingerprint visitors at entry points.
In the UAE we don't do any of that. We just let those nationals come in — no questions asked.
It is true that airport authorities have sufficient procedural guidelines to check the movement of passengers, as stated by some officials following the Al Mabhouh murder. But we believe the country must reconsider the visa-waiver policy. In fact, all of those countries don't treat UAE citizens the same way.
Emiratis must obtain entry visas before they can travel to all western countries. We should do the same thing.
The current policy has been a security burden on the country and its law-enforcement resources. It should be changed. Pre-arranged visas should be obtained to enter the UAE. Or we should follow the same security procedures used in other countries; namely to photograph and fingerprint visitors from those nations.
The killers of the Hamas official would have thought 1,000 times before committing their heinous crime in Dubai had they been photographed or fingerprinted at the airport. The UAE must remain an open place to all nationalities, but we need deterrents that can stop such criminal activities.
