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.

  • Kiwi@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Love how much OP is shilling for UAE. I doubt OP would be so okay with the jail sentence if it were them who had to serve it.

    • 01011@monero.townOP
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      1 year ago

      Just because I’m not accepting of much of the vile behavior that is tolerated in the West does not mean that I am shilling for the UAE.

      • Kiwi@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You’re right, yelling at someone is super vile behavior. It should definitely be punished. I assume you also believe that freely expressing options about politics, or religion is also super vile and should be punished.

        The west has its own issues, and the way people interact with each other is one of them, but the UAE is not in a position to pass judgement. The forced civility between civilians while the government carries out mass executions by beheading of dissidents is a thin vail over the same vile behavior you are decrying in your comments.

        I’ve read all of your comments in this thread, you are 1000% shilling for UAE

        • 01011@monero.townOP
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          1 year ago

          Your assumptions are false and quite the leap from my objections to verbal assault. I am not a religious man, I take no issue with discussing politics.

          Nowhere have I mentioned religious discourse or politics. The mere fact that you would bring such topics to the fore is suggestive of the bigoted lens through which many people in the West view other parts of the world.

      • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Charging a person for three months for being an asshole is too much tho. With all diferent cultures and stuff, what can even grant such a sentence? Article didn’t specify it. I can’t believe a ranting brit can cause that much of a problem to lock him up.

  • gerryflap@feddit.nl
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    1 year ago

    I mean, insulting staff is disgusting behaviour, but 3 months of prison is absolutely insane. These countries are still hellholes stuck in the past, and I’ll make sure never to visit them.

  • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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    1 year ago

    Why do people still visit Dubai? There’s all kinds of harmless or relatively minor stuff that can get you thrown in prison there. I wouldn’t even change planes in that theocratic shithole.

    • lad@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      I was told that they have cheap stuff in duty-free and the flights are cheaper than with some other transits.

      But I agree with the sentiment, it’s probably not the best thing to support them by visiting and leaving your money with them

  • cheese_greater@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m not crazy about a lot of these places but I do so hate assholes who treat the waitstaff like their own personal lot in life. Fuck this guy if these alligators allegations are true 🐊

    Edit: every time I hear the word allegations, my mind immediately turnd to

    1. Alligators
    2. freddy vs jason (if you say it funny kenough)

    Edit: even sadder, i first spelled it like allegators --> what Lawyers should have been called. Allegators, like allocutors

  • magnetosphere@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I’m not a big fan of the UAE, but I do like the idea of criminalizing the abuse of service workers. The American “kiss their ass faster and more thoroughly” style isn’t fair to employees, and only rewards bad behavior.

    • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That’s easily solvable by refusing service to someone who uses abusive language.

      The only instance where words should get you jail time is if it’s a specific and targeted threat against someone, just being a douche is far too grey of an area to put people in prison for.

      • magnetosphere@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        True. Jail time would often be overkill, but people need to understand that it’s not acceptable to threaten to take away someone’s livelihood (and often their health insurance) just because the employee is following company policy. That can be a much more serious threat than customers realize.

        In order to refuse service, employees have to feel comfortable doing so. That means being certain that there will be no negative repercussions from management, and that management will back their decision 100%. Service workers shouldn’t have to choose between keeping their dignity or paying their rent.

      • MurphysPaw@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Yeah the punishment was extreme but what was the guy thinking? If you’re gonna travel to another country the least you should do is make yourself aware of the shit you might be in for.

        A long flight can be stressful, sure, but you’re not in England now you silly sausage.

      • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Wow my games aren’t stupid. Saying that is worth like a zillion months in a cell.

  • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Fuck Sharia law, fuck draconian abrahamic religions, fuck their way of life and their culture.

    These asshats are going to drag us into the dark ages because of their make believe gods.

      • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah I’ll admit it. I hate religious people. Even the ones that don’t push these practices onto others.

        It’s funny to me how the ones who fully follow their religious doctrine are called extremists when they’re actually the only ones actually following the written rules.

        So you’re either aggressively trying to expand your influence on the world or your hypocritically cherry picking details to make you feel better about it.

        Either way I’m sick of fucking hearing about it. Idgaf which sky daddy you pray to or believe is real. Idgaf about what your special book says you can or can’t do. Absolutely none of it holds any weight to me at all and it’s just modern barbarism using religious persecution as a shield to hide behind.

        “They made fun of my religion 😭😭😭”

        Yeah cause you just killed 3 women for not wearing the right piece of fuckin cloth on their heads.

      • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Western bigotry… I’m a bit rusty, is that 6 months or 9 months in a decrepit cell?

  • Gazumi@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Man travels outside of UK and expects to be treated as if at home!!

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    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.

    The Court of Appeal heard that the man began to insult staff at Dubai International Airport after they told him that they couldn’t immediately bring his mother a wheelchair, reports the Daily Mail.

    “I saw the traveller repeatedly asking an airport desk employee about the wheelchair and expected that he might have not understood her explanation,” she said, reports The National.

    In October, an American student briefly faced a year in prison after being accused of assaulting staff during an altercation.

    In 2017, a British tourist was also sentenced to a brief jail term after making “rude gestures” and touching a man’s hip in a bar.


    The original article contains 299 words, the summary contains 161 words. Saved 46%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It makes sense that a penalty is set proportional to the harm caused, so the 3 months sentence might make sense if the victim was genuinelly psychologically affected by it in a way that lasted a significant period, but for merelly feeling insulted 3 months seems the kind of “Justice not at all trying to be Just” you get when authoritarian moralism is encoded in Law, not at all what law-making should strive for in a country aiming for Rule Of Law were sentencing is guided by harm caused rather than the iron-fist enforcing of moral behaviours.

    Of course, this being the UAE, I’m not at all surprised that the Law is not at all about doing what is Just, since unlike in Democracies that country doesn’t even attempt to have real Rule Of Law.