https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/04/new-york-college-student-dubai-jail
Advocacy group said Elizabeth Polanco de los Santos, 21, accused of ‘assaulting and insulting’ contact, faced up to year in prison
How does anyone have the impression that the UAE is anything other than incredibly corrupt and fucking medieval?
The crazy thing here is that she wasn't even traveling to Dubai. It was a layover! And all she wanted was help putting on some sort of medical device they made her remove. The whole thing was basically an extortion scheme.
I don't see how this is much different from u.s. police. You could easily be charged with "assaulting a police officer" in the u.s. if a cop wanted to be a jackass. You could get thrown in jail for months or years until it gets sorted out even if you are found not guilty.
Yes, that's why we should always call it out in all forms about how any person of authority can extort people and the importance in ensuring it doesn't happen.
🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles: ::: spoiler Click here to see the summary But because she allegedly touched an airport security officer’s arm, she was detained there for more than two months and endured the threat of spending more than a year in prison before she was cleared to return home Tuesday, according to an advocacy group which supported her.
The 21-year-old, a business arts major at Lehman College in the Bronx, had stopped there for a connecting flight when airport customs officers told her to take off a waist compression device she was wearing after having surgery.
Though she said the officers had directed unfriendly stares at her and seemingly laughed at the appearance of her surgical wounds, Polanco gently tapped one of the women on the arm to ask for help putting the cumbersome trainer back on, said a news release from Detained in Dubai, an organization that provides legal assistance to foreigners in the United Arab Emirates.
The leader of Detained in Dubai, Radha Stirling, said she suspected the purpose of the appeal was to use the prospect of a potentially harsher punishment to bully Polanco into paying them through an out-of-court settlement.
Despite the news Tuesday from Polanco, Detained in Dubai called on the US state department to revise its travel warnings “to include the risk of false allegations and extortion scams”.
In a separate high-profile case in 2017, a Briton named Jamie Harron received a three-month jail sentence for touching a man’s hip while carrying a drink through a crowded bar.
Saved 71% of original text. :::
The sentence makes sense in context of the article. Detained in Dubai is asking the US State Department to warn travelers of the risk of unjust arrest and extortion, even though Ms. Polanco's ordeal has ended.