A UK citizen has been sentenced to three months in jail in Dubai after “insulting” airport staff who were slow to bring his mother a wheelchair.
The unnamed man was originally issued a Dh 10,000 (£2,150) fine, but his appeal against this failed and his punishment was extended to a jail term on 6 November.
An airport employee told the court that the man swore at her after she had explained the airport’s wheelchair policy to him, telling him that “a wheelchair would be made available before boarding the bus”.
“When I tried to explain it to him, he insulted me using very bad language. I told the traveller that using such offensive language is not allowed at Dubai airport but he responded that he didn’t care.”
The employee then called the police, and a case was filed against the man in Dubai’s Criminal Court. Following an appeal, which he lost, the fine was escalated into a jail sentence, followed by immediate deportation.
You’re very much talking from the perspective of somebody who was raised in a society where speaking disrespectfully to strangers is tolerated. The Emirati authorities have put in place laws that reflect their values - one of which is that people should communicate with a civil tongue. If you are unable to do so then it’s best you not go to the UAE.
I come from a society where the government doesn’t imprison people willy nilly.
And I will be avoiding the UAE like the plague, because our values about peoples freedom and rights are polar opposites.
The UAE is a humans rights shithole anyway. This is just the tip of the very shitty, bigoted, racist, hateful iceberg.
Ah, and what country may that be because it certainly isn’t the USA
They put laws in place that reflect their desire for control. Is your head so far up your own ass that you think that the people setting those laws actually follow them?
There’s separate laws for the ruling class. They don’t give a flying fuck about “values”, they just want control
As opposed to the Western world where that would never happen…
The judicial system is never used to persecute racial minorities in the West…
Why is the best defense for the actions of the UAE that “the west” has done it as well? I thought you guys wanted to be better than “the west”. If we’re such a poor example of morality, surpass us instead.
Yeah how’s those apostasy laws? Oh! Lookie there, it’s death. Noice. But in fairness I wouldn’t recommend the United States to folks based on my experience of having lived here all my life. So I think it’s fair to live and let live at the end of the day.
That said, challenging a fine and that challenge resulting in an increased sentence encourages folks to accept guilt when it may not be due. I don’t like it when they do it here in the US, I think it’s fair to indicate that it’s not liked anywhere else.
Laws like the one that forbid that a homosexual couple can share kisses in public places?
Why is homosexuality the big go to when looking to attack the UAE?
There are people in the West who grew up in societies where homosexuality was illegal and where physically assaulting homosexuals was rife.
It is only relatively recently that has ceased to be the case.
Public displays of affection are not cultural norms in the GCC between men and women.
Why not? It fucking sucks and is against human rights, everywhere it happens. And it’s quite a stark contrast for the UAE to behave like this great, modern society and still have this kind of dark age laws…
And that’s a big reason for me to avoid such archaic countries in general.
So they overreact when their feelings get hurt there and I shouldn’t go. Got it.
It’s a face saving culture. So yeah, by our standards they will over react to embarrassment.
The only standards I’ve got.
I believe in cultural relativism, but I don’t think it’s an absolute. It only goes so far. It’s just (like) my opinion (man), but anybody who reacts that way to an insult loses much more face or respect than a person who is big enough to have a measured and reasonable response, rather than taking months of a person’s life as punishment for less than 30 seconds of speech.
Sure, and I’m sure you can just explain that to the legal system of any face saving culture you happen to find yourself in.
I believe I mentioned I wouldn’t be going to such places, but I appreciate your concern for my well-being.
Yeah they really respect women and foreign workers - so much respect. Fuck the UAE and fuck anyone for thinking it’s a respectable nation.
There was a time that slavery was the custom in the US.
I’m not saying people should go around insulting everyone all day, I’m saying that using “cultural norms” as defense for any sort of punishment is dumb.
Cultural norms are factors in all legal systems, to pretend otherwise is to be (in your parlance) “dumb”.
Just because it’s normal, doesn’t make it any less fucking stupid. Your argument is literally just more “it’s just the way it is”, which is again, fucking stupid. “appeal to tradition”
Again, that is what ALL legal systems do. Judeo-Christian “values” are what underpin legal systems in the Western world. The notion of “rights” and “privileges” stem from local tradition, they are not universal.
It isn’t stupid to point out the truth but your inability to use civilized language is telling - it fully explains to me why you are so offended that somebody is being held to account for using impolite language for no justifiable reason.
Your clear sense of smug superiority is also pretty telling why you feel there’s no problem here. Real “they aren’t hurting the right people” energy. And you can’t defend your argument with anything beyond “it’s the way it is”, so resort to ad hominem. Have a nice day Bruh
If your intention is to provide an explanation, that’s a good point.
If your intention is to justify that law in a broad moral context then “it’s the culture there” really isn’t a valid justification, unless the point you want to make is that the country’s culture is inconsistent with present day broad moral context, in which case it sounds about right.
Who gets to dictate present day broad moral context? Is a vote taken on such?
If a vote was taken, of all the people of the West, and all the people of whatever you define as not the west, and you asked all the free people AND slaves whether they think slavery is good, what do YOU think the results would be? There’s your Present Day Broad Moral Context. Nobody wants to be a slave. You don’t want to be a slave. Slavery is bad for humans to do to one another. This is easy.
Don’t you guys have like a fuck load of slaves?
Civil tongue? Sorry what?