DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates deported an online activist to Thailand on Monday after stripping him of citizenship, part of a widening crackdown on alleged anti-state challenges since the Arab Spring uprisings, a rights group said.    

The deportation followed a separate wave of detentions this week of at least seven people suspected of plotting against the ruling system in the Emirates, which has stepped up pressures on perceived dissent since the political upheavals across the region began last year.

The UAE is a key western military foothold in the Gulf, including a base for US warplanes, and has sharply boosted its oil-exporting profile with a pipeline that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf — which Iran has threatened to block in retaliation for tighter western sanctions.

The UAE has not faced street protests or violence over calls for change, but authorities have sharply increased web monitoring and other measures against groups urging for reforms in the UAE's tightly ruled federation of seven emirates.

The London-based Emirates Centre for Human Rights said activist Ahmed Abdul Khaleq was deported on a Comoros Islands passport arranged by UAE authorities in the first such banishment by the country. He is among a group of activists whose citizenship has been revoked by UAE officials after they campaigned for reforms.—AP