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Why the Arrest of a Lebanese Doctor Should Terrify Every Visitor to the UAE

163 points by Michelangelo11 5y ago

Barrin92 5y ago
>Another joke Dr. Kharrat tweeted urged the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen to attack Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, as reported by French newspaper L’Orient Le Jour. I'm gonna be honest how can anyone actually think tweeting that is a good idea.
- deleted 5y ago
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- asadlionpk 5y ago
  Agreed. Wouldn't US or France do the same if someone publicly suggested similar violence for WTC or Eiffel?
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    No (in the US). You'd have your visa revoked and be deported in a heartbeat, but you would not be charged or disappeared.
    - asadlionpk 5y ago
      deported to guantanamo?
      - kjs3 5y ago
        By all means provide us with the name of any individual who was sent to Gitmo for a tweet.
    - throwawayffffas 5y ago
      I am pretty sure in case they thought you were actually connected to actual terrorists you would be with a bag over your head and on your way to god knows where before you could say extraordinary rendition. The fact is countries detain people all the time for a variety of reasons. I am not saying it's right, it just is. In general it's a bad plan to put yourself in the hands of your opponents, especially if they are not very big on human rights and the rule of law. Hostage diplomacy is very much a thing[1]. In general though I would think for most westerners it would be rather safe to visit the UAE, I think it's fairly aligned to the west and unlikely to detain people just to make a fuss. [1] https://tnsr.org/2021/11/caught-between-giants-hostage-diplomacy-and-negotiation-strategy-for-middle-powers/ https://tnsr.org/2021/11/caught-between-giants-hostage-diplo...
    - cycomanic 5y ago
      No mind you the US disappeared people for much less, be it in Guantanamo or some of the black ops prison they had all over the place in "collaborating countries" after 9/11. There is a difference in scale and directness to this in UAE though.
      - bpodgursky 5y ago
        Uh no the US did not disappear people for "much less" than a tweet I'm by no means apologizing for unethical and illegal extraordinary renditions, which were unacceptable, but that is a ridiculous claim.
  - livinginfear 5y ago
    No. France did nothing when thousands of people celebrated Notre Dame burning. Throughout the Trump presidency making threats against the president was pretty much the bread and butter of Twitter.
    - mardifoufs 5y ago
      They did arrest some people who cheered for the beheading of the high-school teacher though IIRC. France has pretty harsh (and often used) laws regulating speech, and they are ambiguous enough that they can be used pretty broadly. Just an example: >Thousands of people are convicted every year for “contempt of public officials”, a vaguely defined criminal offence that law enforcement and judicial authorities have applied in massive numbers to silence peaceful dissent. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/11/france-is-not-the-free-speech-champion-it-says-it-is/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/11/france-is-not...
    - sonicggg 5y ago
      Yeah, France is probably not a good example. They never had much backbone there. In 10 years, Paris may as well be under Sharia law.
    - rat9988 5y ago
      This is utterly wrong.
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- someotherperson 5y ago
  From https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1295901/lebanese-doctor-arrested-in-abu-dhabi-seemingly-over-tweets-deemed-offensive-to-the-emiratis.html https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1295901/lebanese-doc... > “The talk about this tweet is fake news,” a source close to the gynecologist and an MP of the Free Patriotic Movement, to which Kharrat is allegedly close, told L’Orient-Le Jour on condition of anonymity. > He claimed that this tweet appeared after Kharrat’s arrest, saying that it was not published on the doctor’s personal account, but on that of an UAE national It appears that the original tweet was faked.
trhway 5y ago
Time to make an app which would analyze your social media presence and for any country would show what laws you have violated and what punishment is waiting you where. Premium version will be showing that "cost" before you're to post something.
- l33t2328 5y ago
  That seems really hard. How would you identify a joke/insult vs a neutral post vs praise?
  - asadlionpk 5y ago
    a bit of sentiment analysis and banned keywords.
    - l33t2328 5y ago
      Mmm, seems troublesome to detect sarcasm, context, etc. When the setting is legal, these such errors are unacceptable.
  - wsinks 5y ago
    At this point I'd probably just pay a 'sentiment analysis' company that I found off google that's been doing all this stuff for ~10 years. Lots of correlation models that need to be updated as people learn what gets logged as certain sentiment and then they change their language to not be part of that. Then I realized you might be asking about "how do you identify a sarcastic comment that looks like praise?" ..and it seems there's no easy answer to that. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053951720972735 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053951720972735 https://wpmu.mah.se/nmict162group7/?p=180 https://wpmu.mah.se/nmict162group7/?p=180 So I guess after all this, I've gone from my initial sarcastic remark (the top of this post) to 10 mins later scratching my head and thinking that this business idea is more difficult that going back to our government and demanding more change.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  The solution is not an app, but to avoid travel to these countries in their entirety.
foobarian 5y ago
As if anyone traveling to a place like that is not already terrified.
- dwater 5y ago
  It was the location of the movie "Sex and the City 2". The UAE has put a huge effort into internationally branding themselves as a luxury tourism destination. I imagine there are loads of visitors who have no idea what the laws or legal system are like.
  - walrus01 5y ago
    google "UAE Sonapur" for some documented examples of the near-slavery condition that some of the imported workers from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh live in. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=uae+sonapur https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=uae+son... https://gulfnews.com/uae/sonapur-welcome-to-the-dark-side-1.463591 https://gulfnews.com/uae/sonapur-welcome-to-the-dark-side-1....
    - dylan604 5y ago
      I wonder how many of the people that can afford these trips care about any of that?
      - mytailorisrich 5y ago
        From Europe, Dubai is a very common and rather cheap destination these days. Return flights from London are under £300.
    - rosndo 5y ago
      “near-slavery” is not slavery, neither is it worse than the places many of these workers come from.
      - cycomanic 5y ago
mytailorisrich 5y ago
A small correction: L'Orient-Le Jour is a French-language Lebanese newspaper, not a French newspaper.
brightball 5y ago
Related: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/47/ https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/47/
klyrs 5y ago
Doesn't worry me a bit. I'd already be looking at 2 years in prison just for being gay. But then, there's a whole bunch of the world that I wouldn't travel to. https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2021/03/23/crime-report-20-riskiest-places-for-gay-travelers-and-the-5-safest/?sh=3586036d6d1b https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2021/03/23/cri...
- fortran77 5y ago
  - bitexploder 5y ago
    Ehh, ya know, that is just a polarizing characterization. Most people just don't agree with what is happening to them. It does not mean most of those people that support their freedom and right from persecution would travel there or that it supports their views directly. Genocide isn't cool, ya know. Freedom limiting social systems aren't either, but that is a separate issue.
    - deleted 5y ago
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    - fortran77 5y ago
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  - user- 5y ago
    Unless you're trying to be obtuse, it shouldn't be too hard for you to understand why. Just because a culture or people are not perfect doesn't justify their oppression.
- lostmsu 5y ago
  Are you visiting UAE often?
  - klyrs 5y ago
kjellWho 5y ago
I wonder how someone who publicly joked about supporting ISIS or Al-Qaeda and hoping they strike the new WTC would be greeted if they arrived to the US.
- Krasnol 5y ago
  To be fair, the US is hardly a good example for a civilised/normal Western country.
  - mattcwilson 5y ago
    What would be a better one?
  - mardifoufs 5y ago
    If we were to rank "civilized" by restrictions on speech, as you seem to be doing here, the US would be so far ahead that it's not even a comparison. Like of all things to go "America bad, europe good" on, free speech is absolutely not it. (Yes, the excuse is that Europe has a different definition of free speech but the UAE would probably say the same. And even then I don't see how the US would be uncivilized according to the european definition of free speech lol)
    - asadlionpk 5y ago
      Try talking about Palestine in US?
      - mardifoufs 5y ago
        Are you implying you'd get arrested? I remember attending a Palestine/BDS protest in NYC a few years ago and nothing happening to me even as a canadian (muslim arab) visitor. I agree though that the restrictions on supporting BDS in some parts of the US are completely absurd. And I always find it funny that conservatives turn a completely blind eye to those laws (especially since it's in Texas! Pretty ironic). Yet the same laws often also apply in europe, and they are usually a lot stricter so my original point stands. >Hervieu pointed to a recent ruling by the Court of Cassation, France’s court of final appeal, which upheld the criminal convictions of 12 BDS activists who burst into a supermarket in 2009 wearing “Boycott Israel” shirts and handing out fliers that read, “Buying Israeli products means legitimising crimes in Gaza.” >The legislation means that what BDS activists regarded as political statements denouncing Israel’s violations of international law could be – and indeed were – treated by French courts as an "incitement" to hatred. https://www.france24.com/en/20160120-france-boycott-israel-bds-law-free-speech-antisemitism https://www.france24.com/en/20160120-france-boycott-israel-b...
wangii 5y ago
2 top news about UAE in a row, is another mideast war coming?
oaiey 5y ago
There is huge danger when criminal prosecution is automated. A machine has no sense of proportion or tolerance. That is why we allow police officers, prosecuters and judges to drop cases or just cite people. Not exactly sure how this doctor got arrested but if they automatically scan feeds on arrival and then process them by strict adherence to law, that is bad.
tradethedelta 5y ago
If you live the sword, you'll die by the sword. So yes you should be terrified of the UAE but you shouldn't have any illusions about what this country is about. Unfortunately, Lebanon is a complete basket case of a country. So many well educated Lebanese are forced to find work in Gulf countries with repressive regimes. They pay well to buy your silence.
jmyeet 5y ago
Seeing the headline my first immediate first guess was "oh he insulted the royal family". The first sentence confirms it. There are a number of places in the world that are like this. Qatar and Thailand spring immediately to mind. It can even go beyond the ruling family. There was a US helicopter pilot (IIRC) who wrote something disparaging about his Qatari employer on Facebook while in the United States who was arrested upon his return to Qatar for it. You have to be aware of the laws of whatever country you're going to and respect them. Ignore them at your own peril. You don't really get to complain it. Your choices are either to go and follow and law and not go. Ignorance is no excuse. I'd actually be way more wary of taking a job in some of these countries. To leave Qatar, for eample, you need an exit visa. Basically, your employer has to consent. This system is ripe for abuse and has been abused many times. Employers use it to withhold wages in exchange for giving their permission. Personally, I would never work in such a place.
- mieubrisse 5y ago
  Yep this. Feels like folks in this thread expect the $general_western_ethos to apply everywhere, and then are outraged when it doesn't. That's not to say we can't disagree with the country's laws, but if you visit the country then it's their land, their laws. Anything else would be crazy on account of the inverse: someone from another country could do something very illegal in the US and insist it's fine on account of being allowed in their home country (marriage laws come to mind).
323 5y ago
There are soooo many UAE arrest stories. All the following are non-muslim non-citizen people, so they can't claim any kind of citizen or religious jurisdiction: - A woman had a glass of wine while flying to UAE on UAE own airline!!!! https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/11/woman-arrested-with-daughter-in-dubai-over-drinking-wine-is-released https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/11/woman-arrest... - A guy accidentally touches the hip of another guy in a club https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/22/briton-jailed-for-three-months-in-dubai-for-touching-mans-hip https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/22/briton-jailed-... - A non-married couple kissing in a restaurant https://abcnews.go.com/International/TheLaw/kissing-couple-faces-jail-time-dubai/story?id=10103627 https://abcnews.go.com/International/TheLaw/kissing-couple-f... And on and on and on. Typically, if you are the citizen of a powerful country (US, UK, EU, ...) they will let you off with a fine. If you are the citizen of a less powerful country, like this Lebanon doctor, you go to jail.
- aliswe 5y ago
  #1: The swedish iranian woman travelled without a valid passport and started filming the security guard when questioned about it. #2: Sounds like at least one of them was pretty drunk. Men regularly walk hand in had in arab societies, even only holding the pinky! Given that its the same source as #1, I wont hold my breath. #3 "a simple peck on the cheek" are you kidding me? ever been to Dubai?!
- fmajid 5y ago
  No, being a British citizen did not protect Matthew Hedges from being sentenced to life imprisonment on trumped up charges of espionage (he was eventually pardoned and released): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_of_Matthew_Hedges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_of_Matthew_Hedges Western governments are as craven in appeasing the UAE and Saudi kleptocracies, because of their wealth, as poor countries like India or Pakistan that hire themselves as mercenaries for the emirs dirty work (like kidnapping princess Latina of Dubai). Calling them medieval would be a grave insult to the Dark Ages.
  - fmajid 5y ago
    Princess Latifa, not Latina. Pesky autocorrect...
wara23arish 5y ago
“The Houthis promise to bomb Burj Khalifa. My God, please let this information be true,” Is the tweet in question. It is worth noting that we’re not sure yet that the tweet is true. But lets assume it is: Do people really think that this tweet should be enough to detain/arrest him? People in the US and in Lebanon (most of the world too) make countless of posts vilifying and wishing politicians dead. The guy is a Christian doctor from Lebanon visiting for tourism/work. He has no impact or connections on houthis. I also promise there’s countless of Lebanese people with similar or worse tweets visiting UAE. Putting my conspiracy hat on: Elections are coming up in Lebanon, arresting this doctor will make major news in Lebanon. This will illicit two types of reaction there, people will be cheering this person’s arrest or will be cheering for a more hardline stance and distancing against UAE. There are parties that claim to have good connections to UAE royalty (more like serfs) who will use this to say that this wouldn’t happen under their rule.
- anonu 5y ago
  Dictatorships over time become police states. In Lebanon there is a healthy history of political satire, thanks in part to the fact that there is no real government. The doctors mistake was thinking that any sort of "freedom" of speech he had in Lebanon would be protected. Unfortunately not the case.
mieubrisse 5y ago
I lived in the UAE for 3 years, and think the reality is more complicated than the article's "every visitor to the UAE should be terrified" makes it out to be. Is the UAE a dictatorship? Absolutely - the newspaper is censored, and publicly challenging or speaking ill of the government is a Bad Idea that everyone knows not to do. Is it the autocratic dystopia that the article makes it out to be? Also no; I didn't have any problems during my time there, nor did any friends that I know of (including three gay friends). The UAE is basically caught between both traditional Muslim and Western democratic influences, and it's not strictly one or the other. As long as you're not challenging the government or doing anything Muslims would consider bad taste (e.g. public PDA), you're generally left alone. Which meant I was surprised to learn about the jailing on account of a joke about the name "Nahyan", until I saw, "Another joke Dr. Kharrat tweeted urged the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen to attack Dubai’s Burj Khalifa". Iran and the UAE _really_ don't like each other, and the UAE maintains a strong security state at least in part because of it. Urging a Houthi attack on the Burj Khalifa would be taken very seriously, and I'd surmise 1) he ended up on a watchlist when he first made it and 2) the UAE is now using him as political pressure on Lebanon. To be clear, I'm not at all condoning the UAE's actions here as they don't align with my personal values. That said, I'm not surprised: the UAE takes perceived threats to the state very seriously and doesn't claim to allow free speech, so Kharrat was doing a (from an Emirati perspective) Very Bad Thing that most visitors to the UAE aren't likely to.
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  "doesn't claim to allow free speech" They have been running a lot of PR campaigns about how modern they are.
- fanf2 5y ago
  Is it an autocratic dystopia? Maybe ask some of the migrant labourers what they think. https://travellingjezebel.com/modern-slavery-dubai/ https://travellingjezebel.com/modern-slavery-dubai/
  - rosndo 5y ago
    I have, they’re overwhelmingly grateful to be able to work in much better conditions for much better pay than they would at home.
Lamad123 5y ago
I shouldn't be terrified by the mistreatment of millions of South Asian laborers in these oppressive oil-gas countries, but I should be terrified because of this random dude!! No thanks, journal de Septentrion!

>Another joke Dr. Kharrat tweeted urged the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen to attack Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, as reported by French newspaper L’Orient Le Jour. I'm gonna be honest how can anyone actually think tweeting that is a good idea.

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asadlionpk 5y ago
Agreed. Wouldn't US or France do the same if someone publicly suggested similar violence for WTC or Eiffel?
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  No (in the US). You'd have your visa revoked and be deported in a heartbeat, but you would not be charged or disappeared.
  - asadlionpk 5y ago
    deported to guantanamo?
    - kjs3 5y ago
      By all means provide us with the name of any individual who was sent to Gitmo for a tweet.
  - throwawayffffas 5y ago
    I am pretty sure in case they thought you were actually connected to actual terrorists you would be with a bag over your head and on your way to god knows where before you could say extraordinary rendition. The fact is countries detain people all the time for a variety of reasons. I am not saying it's right, it just is. In general it's a bad plan to put yourself in the hands of your opponents, especially if they are not very big on human rights and the rule of law. Hostage diplomacy is very much a thing[1]. In general though I would think for most westerners it would be rather safe to visit the UAE, I think it's fairly aligned to the west and unlikely to detain people just to make a fuss. [1] https://tnsr.org/2021/11/caught-between-giants-hostage-diplomacy-and-negotiation-strategy-for-middle-powers/ https://tnsr.org/2021/11/caught-between-giants-hostage-diplo...
  - cycomanic 5y ago
    No mind you the US disappeared people for much less, be it in Guantanamo or some of the black ops prison they had all over the place in "collaborating countries" after 9/11. There is a difference in scale and directness to this in UAE though.
    - bpodgursky 5y ago
      Uh no the US did not disappear people for "much less" than a tweet I'm by no means apologizing for unethical and illegal extraordinary renditions, which were unacceptable, but that is a ridiculous claim.
- livinginfear 5y ago
  No. France did nothing when thousands of people celebrated Notre Dame burning. Throughout the Trump presidency making threats against the president was pretty much the bread and butter of Twitter.
  - mardifoufs 5y ago
    They did arrest some people who cheered for the beheading of the high-school teacher though IIRC. France has pretty harsh (and often used) laws regulating speech, and they are ambiguous enough that they can be used pretty broadly. Just an example: >Thousands of people are convicted every year for “contempt of public officials”, a vaguely defined criminal offence that law enforcement and judicial authorities have applied in massive numbers to silence peaceful dissent. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/11/france-is-not-the-free-speech-champion-it-says-it-is/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/11/france-is-not...
  - sonicggg 5y ago
    Yeah, France is probably not a good example. They never had much backbone there. In 10 years, Paris may as well be under Sharia law.
  - rat9988 5y ago
    This is utterly wrong.
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someotherperson 5y ago
From https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1295901/lebanese-doctor-arrested-in-abu-dhabi-seemingly-over-tweets-deemed-offensive-to-the-emiratis.html https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1295901/lebanese-doc... > “The talk about this tweet is fake news,” a source close to the gynecologist and an MP of the Free Patriotic Movement, to which Kharrat is allegedly close, told L’Orient-Le Jour on condition of anonymity. > He claimed that this tweet appeared after Kharrat’s arrest, saying that it was not published on the doctor’s personal account, but on that of an UAE national It appears that the original tweet was faked.

trhway 5y ago

Time to make an app which would analyze your social media presence and for any country would show what laws you have violated and what punishment is waiting you where. Premium version will be showing that "cost" before you're to post something.

l33t2328 5y ago
That seems really hard. How would you identify a joke/insult vs a neutral post vs praise?
- asadlionpk 5y ago
  a bit of sentiment analysis and banned keywords.
  - l33t2328 5y ago
    Mmm, seems troublesome to detect sarcasm, context, etc. When the setting is legal, these such errors are unacceptable.
- wsinks 5y ago
  At this point I'd probably just pay a 'sentiment analysis' company that I found off google that's been doing all this stuff for ~10 years. Lots of correlation models that need to be updated as people learn what gets logged as certain sentiment and then they change their language to not be part of that. Then I realized you might be asking about "how do you identify a sarcastic comment that looks like praise?" ..and it seems there's no easy answer to that. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053951720972735 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053951720972735 https://wpmu.mah.se/nmict162group7/?p=180 https://wpmu.mah.se/nmict162group7/?p=180 So I guess after all this, I've gone from my initial sarcastic remark (the top of this post) to 10 mins later scratching my head and thinking that this business idea is more difficult that going back to our government and demanding more change.
toomuchtodo 5y ago
The solution is not an app, but to avoid travel to these countries in their entirety.

foobarian 5y ago

As if anyone traveling to a place like that is not already terrified.

dwater 5y ago
It was the location of the movie "Sex and the City 2". The UAE has put a huge effort into internationally branding themselves as a luxury tourism destination. I imagine there are loads of visitors who have no idea what the laws or legal system are like.
- walrus01 5y ago
  google "UAE Sonapur" for some documented examples of the near-slavery condition that some of the imported workers from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh live in. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=uae+sonapur https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=uae+son... https://gulfnews.com/uae/sonapur-welcome-to-the-dark-side-1.463591 https://gulfnews.com/uae/sonapur-welcome-to-the-dark-side-1....
  - dylan604 5y ago
    I wonder how many of the people that can afford these trips care about any of that?
    - mytailorisrich 5y ago
      From Europe, Dubai is a very common and rather cheap destination these days. Return flights from London are under £300.
  - rosndo 5y ago
    “near-slavery” is not slavery, neither is it worse than the places many of these workers come from.
    - cycomanic 5y ago

mytailorisrich 5y ago

A small correction: L'Orient-Le Jour is a French-language Lebanese newspaper, not a French newspaper.

brightball 5y ago

Related: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/47/ https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/47/

klyrs 5y ago

Doesn't worry me a bit. I'd already be looking at 2 years in prison just for being gay. But then, there's a whole bunch of the world that I wouldn't travel to. https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2021/03/23/crime-report-20-riskiest-places-for-gay-travelers-and-the-5-safest/?sh=3586036d6d1b https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2021/03/23/cri...

fortran77 5y ago
- bitexploder 5y ago
  Ehh, ya know, that is just a polarizing characterization. Most people just don't agree with what is happening to them. It does not mean most of those people that support their freedom and right from persecution would travel there or that it supports their views directly. Genocide isn't cool, ya know. Freedom limiting social systems aren't either, but that is a separate issue.
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - fortran77 5y ago
    [flagged]
- user- 5y ago
  Unless you're trying to be obtuse, it shouldn't be too hard for you to understand why. Just because a culture or people are not perfect doesn't justify their oppression.
lostmsu 5y ago
Are you visiting UAE often?
- klyrs 5y ago

kjellWho 5y ago

I wonder how someone who publicly joked about supporting ISIS or Al-Qaeda and hoping they strike the new WTC would be greeted if they arrived to the US.

Krasnol 5y ago
To be fair, the US is hardly a good example for a civilised/normal Western country.
- mattcwilson 5y ago
  What would be a better one?
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  If we were to rank "civilized" by restrictions on speech, as you seem to be doing here, the US would be so far ahead that it's not even a comparison. Like of all things to go "America bad, europe good" on, free speech is absolutely not it. (Yes, the excuse is that Europe has a different definition of free speech but the UAE would probably say the same. And even then I don't see how the US would be uncivilized according to the european definition of free speech lol)
  - asadlionpk 5y ago
    Try talking about Palestine in US?
    - mardifoufs 5y ago
      Are you implying you'd get arrested? I remember attending a Palestine/BDS protest in NYC a few years ago and nothing happening to me even as a canadian (muslim arab) visitor. I agree though that the restrictions on supporting BDS in some parts of the US are completely absurd. And I always find it funny that conservatives turn a completely blind eye to those laws (especially since it's in Texas! Pretty ironic). Yet the same laws often also apply in europe, and they are usually a lot stricter so my original point stands. >Hervieu pointed to a recent ruling by the Court of Cassation, France’s court of final appeal, which upheld the criminal convictions of 12 BDS activists who burst into a supermarket in 2009 wearing “Boycott Israel” shirts and handing out fliers that read, “Buying Israeli products means legitimising crimes in Gaza.” >The legislation means that what BDS activists regarded as political statements denouncing Israel’s violations of international law could be – and indeed were – treated by French courts as an "incitement" to hatred. https://www.france24.com/en/20160120-france-boycott-israel-bds-law-free-speech-antisemitism https://www.france24.com/en/20160120-france-boycott-israel-b...

wangii 5y ago

2 top news about UAE in a row, is another mideast war coming?

oaiey 5y ago

There is huge danger when criminal prosecution is automated. A machine has no sense of proportion or tolerance. That is why we allow police officers, prosecuters and judges to drop cases or just cite people. Not exactly sure how this doctor got arrested but if they automatically scan feeds on arrival and then process them by strict adherence to law, that is bad.

tradethedelta 5y ago

If you live the sword, you'll die by the sword. So yes you should be terrified of the UAE but you shouldn't have any illusions about what this country is about. Unfortunately, Lebanon is a complete basket case of a country. So many well educated Lebanese are forced to find work in Gulf countries with repressive regimes. They pay well to buy your silence.

jmyeet 5y ago

Seeing the headline my first immediate first guess was "oh he insulted the royal family". The first sentence confirms it. There are a number of places in the world that are like this. Qatar and Thailand spring immediately to mind. It can even go beyond the ruling family. There was a US helicopter pilot (IIRC) who wrote something disparaging about his Qatari employer on Facebook while in the United States who was arrested upon his return to Qatar for it. You have to be aware of the laws of whatever country you're going to and respect them. Ignore them at your own peril. You don't really get to complain it. Your choices are either to go and follow and law and not go. Ignorance is no excuse. I'd actually be way more wary of taking a job in some of these countries. To leave Qatar, for eample, you need an exit visa. Basically, your employer has to consent. This system is ripe for abuse and has been abused many times. Employers use it to withhold wages in exchange for giving their permission. Personally, I would never work in such a place.

mieubrisse 5y ago
Yep this. Feels like folks in this thread expect the $general_western_ethos to apply everywhere, and then are outraged when it doesn't. That's not to say we can't disagree with the country's laws, but if you visit the country then it's their land, their laws. Anything else would be crazy on account of the inverse: someone from another country could do something very illegal in the US and insist it's fine on account of being allowed in their home country (marriage laws come to mind).

323 5y ago

There are soooo many UAE arrest stories. All the following are non-muslim non-citizen people, so they can't claim any kind of citizen or religious jurisdiction: - A woman had a glass of wine while flying to UAE on UAE own airline!!!! https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/11/woman-arrested-with-daughter-in-dubai-over-drinking-wine-is-released https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/11/woman-arrest... - A guy accidentally touches the hip of another guy in a club https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/22/briton-jailed-for-three-months-in-dubai-for-touching-mans-hip https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/22/briton-jailed-... - A non-married couple kissing in a restaurant https://abcnews.go.com/International/TheLaw/kissing-couple-faces-jail-time-dubai/story?id=10103627 https://abcnews.go.com/International/TheLaw/kissing-couple-f... And on and on and on. Typically, if you are the citizen of a powerful country (US, UK, EU, ...) they will let you off with a fine. If you are the citizen of a less powerful country, like this Lebanon doctor, you go to jail.

aliswe 5y ago
#1: The swedish iranian woman travelled without a valid passport and started filming the security guard when questioned about it. #2: Sounds like at least one of them was pretty drunk. Men regularly walk hand in had in arab societies, even only holding the pinky! Given that its the same source as #1, I wont hold my breath. #3 "a simple peck on the cheek" are you kidding me? ever been to Dubai?!
fmajid 5y ago
No, being a British citizen did not protect Matthew Hedges from being sentenced to life imprisonment on trumped up charges of espionage (he was eventually pardoned and released): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_of_Matthew_Hedges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_of_Matthew_Hedges Western governments are as craven in appeasing the UAE and Saudi kleptocracies, because of their wealth, as poor countries like India or Pakistan that hire themselves as mercenaries for the emirs dirty work (like kidnapping princess Latina of Dubai). Calling them medieval would be a grave insult to the Dark Ages.
- fmajid 5y ago
  Princess Latifa, not Latina. Pesky autocorrect...

wara23arish 5y ago

“The Houthis promise to bomb Burj Khalifa. My God, please let this information be true,” Is the tweet in question. It is worth noting that we’re not sure yet that the tweet is true. But lets assume it is: Do people really think that this tweet should be enough to detain/arrest him? People in the US and in Lebanon (most of the world too) make countless of posts vilifying and wishing politicians dead. The guy is a Christian doctor from Lebanon visiting for tourism/work. He has no impact or connections on houthis. I also promise there’s countless of Lebanese people with similar or worse tweets visiting UAE. Putting my conspiracy hat on: Elections are coming up in Lebanon, arresting this doctor will make major news in Lebanon. This will illicit two types of reaction there, people will be cheering this person’s arrest or will be cheering for a more hardline stance and distancing against UAE. There are parties that claim to have good connections to UAE royalty (more like serfs) who will use this to say that this wouldn’t happen under their rule.

anonu 5y ago
Dictatorships over time become police states. In Lebanon there is a healthy history of political satire, thanks in part to the fact that there is no real government. The doctors mistake was thinking that any sort of "freedom" of speech he had in Lebanon would be protected. Unfortunately not the case.

mieubrisse 5y ago

I lived in the UAE for 3 years, and think the reality is more complicated than the article's "every visitor to the UAE should be terrified" makes it out to be. Is the UAE a dictatorship? Absolutely - the newspaper is censored, and publicly challenging or speaking ill of the government is a Bad Idea that everyone knows not to do. Is it the autocratic dystopia that the article makes it out to be? Also no; I didn't have any problems during my time there, nor did any friends that I know of (including three gay friends). The UAE is basically caught between both traditional Muslim and Western democratic influences, and it's not strictly one or the other. As long as you're not challenging the government or doing anything Muslims would consider bad taste (e.g. public PDA), you're generally left alone. Which meant I was surprised to learn about the jailing on account of a joke about the name "Nahyan", until I saw, "Another joke Dr. Kharrat tweeted urged the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen to attack Dubai’s Burj Khalifa". Iran and the UAE _really_ don't like each other, and the UAE maintains a strong security state at least in part because of it. Urging a Houthi attack on the Burj Khalifa would be taken very seriously, and I'd surmise 1) he ended up on a watchlist when he first made it and 2) the UAE is now using him as political pressure on Lebanon. To be clear, I'm not at all condoning the UAE's actions here as they don't align with my personal values. That said, I'm not surprised: the UAE takes perceived threats to the state very seriously and doesn't claim to allow free speech, so Kharrat was doing a (from an Emirati perspective) Very Bad Thing that most visitors to the UAE aren't likely to.

MomoXenosaga 5y ago
"doesn't claim to allow free speech" They have been running a lot of PR campaigns about how modern they are.
fanf2 5y ago
Is it an autocratic dystopia? Maybe ask some of the migrant labourers what they think. https://travellingjezebel.com/modern-slavery-dubai/ https://travellingjezebel.com/modern-slavery-dubai/
- rosndo 5y ago
  I have, they’re overwhelmingly grateful to be able to work in much better conditions for much better pay than they would at home.

Lamad123 5y ago

I shouldn't be terrified by the mistreatment of millions of South Asian laborers in these oppressive oil-gas countries, but I should be terrified because of this random dude!! No thanks, journal de Septentrion!