Three more Indian expatriates in the United Arab Emirates have been sacked or suspended from their jobs for Islamophobic social media posts days after the Indian ambassador to the Emirate Pavan Kapoor warned Indians there against putting out such posts on social media, a news report said on Saturday.
The three now join nearly half a dozen others who have similarly landed in trouble in recent weeks for their reported Islamophobic social media posts, the Gulf News said.
A spokesperson for Azadea Group that operates Eataly, a chain of high-end Italian restaurants in Dubai, confirmed that Rawat Rohit who was employed with them as a chef has been suspended and is facing a disciplinary probe, the report said.
In another incident, the Sharjah-based Pneumics Automation said they had suspended their storekeeper Sachin Kinnigoli until further notice. “We have withheld his salary and told him not to come to work. The matter is under investigation. We have a zero tolerance policy. Anyone found guilty of insulting or showing contempt for someone’s religion will have to bear the consequences,” the Gulf News report quoted the firm’s unnamed owner as saying. Similarly, Dubai-based Transguard Group said they have cracked down on an employee who had posted several anti-Islamic messages on his Facebook page under the name of Vishal Thakur. “Following an internal investigation, the actual identify of this employee was verified and he was stripped of his security credentials, terminated from our employment and handed over to the relevant authorities as per company policy and UAE Cybercrime Law. As of this statement, he is in the custody of Dubai Police,” a Transguard spokesperson said in a statement to Gulf News.
The latest sackings and suspensions come days after both the former and current Indian Ambassadors to the UAE cautioned their countrymen about the UAE’s strict hate speech laws. Similar warnings were issued by missions in other GCC countries. On 20 April, Indian ambassador to the UAE, Pavan Kapoor in a Twitter post said that “discrimination was against India’s moral fabric” and warned citizens that India and the UAE valued non-discrimination. He also retweeted another post by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that said covid-19 doesn’t “see race, religion, colour, caste, creed, language or borders before striking.”
The UAE outlaws all religious or racial discrimination under a legislation passed in 2015.
Former Indian ambassador Navdeep Suri had also cautioned Indians about the UAE’s hate speech laws and similar warnings have been issued by Indian missions in other Gulf Cooperation Council states.