Posted on 10/06/2023 9:23:49 AM PDT by Red Badger
I love that this became a mainstream news story and then a few days later this lady was freed. That's the power of journalism, people.
That was Tuesday.
And now this:
A 21-year-old New York City college student, who spent five "hellish" months in the United Arab Emirates over an altercation at a Dubai airport has been freed, an advocacy group said.
Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos, a Lehman College student in the Bronx, was detained in June and charged with a year sentence after she was charged for allegedly assaulting and insulting an airport security screener.
If you remember, Elizabeth had some trouble at the Dubai airport with a waist compressor she was supposed to wear after a recent surgery. Security had her take it off, but didn't help her put it back on, and even laughed at her for it. When she called for a friend and "gently touched" an airport security guard's arm, she was put on a no fly list, fined $2,700, and then later sentenced to a year in prison.
But after help from the advocacy group Detained in Dubai, she's coming home five months later.
"Elizabeth boarded her flight home to New York late Tuesday night," Detained in Dubai, an organization that provides advice and legal assistance to foreigners in the United Arab Emirates CEO Radha Stirling said in a statement.
Yeah, the problem is so bad that there is an organization that exists solely for getting trapped visitors out of the Middle Eastern "paradise."
"The news that her sentence would be commuted was a welcome end to Elizabeth's hellish 5 months in Dubai that left her humiliated, traumatized and out of pocket US $50,000"...
$50,000 out of pocket. That's outrageous! "A judge previously ordered she pay a fine of around $2,700, which she did and that could have been the end of it. The customs officers weren't satisfied though. They appealed the sentence and told her they wanted to see her in jail. The vindictiveness of accusers is largely driven by the likelihood that they will be offered compensation to drop the case," Stirling said. "The government of Dubai should forbid workers from accepting compensatory payments as it only encourages workers to make false allegations. Dubai's justice system is routinely misused to extort victims and it's about time the US state department updates its travel warnings to reflect this common practice.
Just a helpful reminder that the values system of individual rights and objective justice doesn't exist in most places.
According to Detained in Dubai CEO Radha Stirling:
The recent high profile cases of Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos and Tierra Allen serve as public media examples of what happens in Dubai on a daily basis. The leadership has spent billions on marketing a glamorous city to international audiences, relying wholly on the naivety of visitors and investors to bring in the dollars.
At the same time, the leadership has done very little to make the venue safe for the very people they lure in. Tourists are vulnerable to vindictive, false and unevidenced allegations that could leave them languishing in notorious jails. They are vulnerable to extortion schemes like we see from airport staff, rental car agents, taxi drivers and so on. People like social media influencer, Tierra Allen, have taken to warning fellow citizens to avoid Dubai at all costs. Elizabeth has already spent US$50,000 and been sentenced to 1 year in prison. For many tourists, it's a one way ticket.
Man, they're nasty over there in Dubai.
But if there's one thing they hate, it's losing face!
Glad you're coming home, Elizabeth, and glad we all know where not to go, or even layover, on our next trip abroad.
That’s how Arabs treat their women and any other Countries Women.
And the U.S. Calls them friends.
How do you say, “Karen” in Arabic?
We are only hearing one side of the story on this
Don’t go to a Muslim county
“ How do you say, “Karen” in Arabic?”
Karenism isn’t well tolerated over there.
While it sounds like an excessive punishment, I doubt they made it up on the spot. One should know how to behave when traveling. I say SHOULD, but this is where the stereotype of the “ugly American” comes from: disrespectful entitled behavior. Arab countries don’t F around. She found out. I do think that even in the US one can be charged with assault for touching an on-duty cop. It certainly can give the green light for a butt whuppin, formerly known as a wood shampoo.
“ We are only hearing one side of the story on this”
Of course we are. Millions of women pass through Dubai airport without a hitch and this chick gets thrown in jail for no reason at all ?? Some time ago there was the lesbian basketballer who got thrown in jail in Moscow. Why is it always young black women getting into trouble in foreign countries ?
Why would any woman who has a choice travel to Muslim countries? Monumental stupidity.
Good for her
I’ve never been there, but from what I’ve seen and read about Dubai, it does sound like there’s more to this story. Dubai seems more sophisticated than this.
So you’re saying she was not guilty?
I lived in DXB a long time ago and then put in effect my escape plan and a great many foreign people find themselves in very serious police matters very fast. Just Google up the phrase “arrested in Dubai” and a very great many stories show up.
The joys of traveling in todays world..
I’ll never understand why anyone would go there.
Dubai has all manner of medieval laws that are only enforced selectively. For instance the consumption of alcohol is illegal unless you’ve applied for and received a (free) license to consume from the government. Yet bartenders at city’s numerous night clubs and wine bars won’t ask if you have one, and the duty-free at the airport sells booze to arriving passengers, no questions asked.
It’s just one of those rules they keep in their pocket so they can put you under their thumb if they decide you’re an undesirable. And there are so many of these rules, you’re bound to be violating something just by being there.
The western ex-pats living there will tell you their rule of thumb is to be ready to flee in a taxi (they’ll be looking for you at the airport) to one of the bordering Arab countries within 15 minutes (abandoning everything in their home) if they even have a suspicion that the government has “persona non grata’d” them, because it can happen to anyone. All they need do is look the wrong way at a member of the (very numerous) extended royal family, or talk too loudly in their presence.
So I suspect there’s more to this story than just touching a man’s arm, but that doesn’t mean the woman in question ever knew she’d done anything wrong.
FWIW, there are no elevators in Dubai’s many glamorous shopping malls because an Arab woman is not permitted to be alone in a room (including an elevator car) with a man not her husband or blood kin. So they have escalators instead. Hotels have elevators but they expect guests in their chi-chi hotels are international travelers savvy enough to know not to get into an elevator car with only Arab women in it but to wait for the next one. Or take the stairs.
And a men aren’t supposed to look too long at any woman they’re not blood kin or married to, so they have a “3-second” rule. That should be long enough a look for you to recognize whether you’re kin or married to her. If not, you avert your gaze, or expect the Arab men present to take offense.
And don’t get me started on the enslavement of the third-world manual laborers they bring in to build their desert paradise and keep it spotless. It might look like Disneyland but the truth is far more sinister.
I’m glad that she finally got home safely.
But I (a white American man) went to Abu Dhabi UAE for a conference right before the Iraq war, and was treated very well by all, even though they may well have known how pro-Serbian I was.
I prayed all the way through my trip, and had others praying for me too.
I got safely home, and got to “enjoy” the war safely from the USA.
And I did it all without kowtowing to Muhammad and Islam!
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