
Life Sentence for British Student Draws Criticism for U.A.E - propman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/life-sentence-for-british-student-casts-shadow-over-u-a-e-1542820081
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fvrghl
Non-paywall: [https://outline.com/62WBbd](https://outline.com/62WBbd)

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CosmicShadow
I don't know why anyone would visit a country with such insane laws, it's just
too dangerous. Sure they seem to have a lot of interesting stuff going on and
to see, but a big fat NOPE after you read anything about their rules and how
they treat people!

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alexis_fr
Look at Japan: 23-day police custody period. After that there’s a 99.99%
confession rate. Carlos Ghosn, president of Nissan, seems to have just
discovered it: He will be interrogated for 12 days. I would never go to such
countries.

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Latteland
Japan is not going to torture him, keep him up without letting him sleep are
they? They have the rule of law and generally treat people well. You can't
seriously compare those countries, can you?

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Cyph0n
It’s definitely much better than KSA, but 23 days in police custody? Most
people would break under the pressure alone - no torture necessary...

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jacobush
Try Sweden... 365 days of policy custody.

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kpil
There's no limit that I know of.

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jacobush
No, you are correct, there's no limit.

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S_A_P
Article is light on details other than to say he was carrying out “legitimate
academic research into security policy following the Arab spring”. Let’s say
that someone from say China came to the US to stake out airports and study the
US’s airport security protocol. I’m not sure the outcome would be much
different. Even if this was all totally above board it Seems a bit naive to
think this isn’t something that you should get permission and clearance to do.
I think the fact that it’s played out this way makes me think it was probably
not strictly academic. I guess I will start DDGing more details.

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Aspos
If my memory serves me right the guy was caught a year or two ago and was
under heavy investigation by UAE counter-intelligence team.

And a life sentence is not something UAE courts would hand out lightly,
especially in these circumstances.

My best guess is that UAE have not got what it asked for to release the guy
pre-trial, but will get something now and sheikh will pardon the guy next
week.

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kencausey
According to an earlier article [1] he was detained in May, seemingly of this
year.

1\. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-
tyne-45871581](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-45871581)

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Aspos
Okay, half a year ago.

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stupidcar
It’s absurd that a British citizen, or a citizen of any democratic county, is
living and studying in a repressive, corrupt and violent regime like the
United Arab Emirates. These countries and their kleptocratic Sheikhs throw
wealth derived from oil and blood at western universities, and bribe their
officials into setting up “campuses” in their states. Then they get upset when
arriving students don’t conform to the apathetic conformity drilled into their
own citizens.

The Cold War is over. Yet somehow western democracies are still clinging on to
alliances with barbarous regimes like Saudi Arabia and UAE. And now we see the
fruits of it: Yemeni citivilians murdered during an unending war, a British
citizen imprisoned for life for offending his hosts, and an agent of the Saudi
royalty installed as president of the USA. What an utterly pathetic state of
affairs.

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c3534l
> The Cold War is over. Yet somehow western democracies are still clinging on
> to alliances with barbarous regimes like Saudi Arabia and UAE.

That's because those in power are the moderate ones, who are able to keep the
most extreme elements of Islamic fundamentalism at bay. You want to topple
Saudi Arabia and UAE? Great, now it's run by ISIS. Sometimes you have to
choose the lesser evil.

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ssijak
If only US and NATO applied that logic to Lybia and Syria

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seanmcdirmid
They did for a long time.

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robotrout
Yep. It was easy for us to topple Libya, and we almost succeeded with Syria as
well, if Russia hadn't stepped in. A secular government is easy to stir up the
fundamentalists against, to use them as foot soldiers in your regime change
operation.

They won't have as much luck with Iran, since it's government is so strongly
aligned with the fundamentalists, the pool of willing cannon fodder will be
smaller.

I hope, at some point, these illegal regime change operations that the US and
other western countries have been involved in for so many decades, will
eventually stop.

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seanmcdirmid
Lybia and Syria had their own rebellions to deal with. Without a popular
uprising, it’s very doubtful that the USA would intervene at all like they did
before in Iraq and Afghanistan. Say what you will, but the people of a country
should have a right to change its government.

Also, when chaos is set into motion, the west has to decide if the costs of
not getting involved are greater than getting involved. Often doing nothing
isn’t viable either.

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devoply
[https://globalnews.ca/news/4684113/matthew-hedges-student-
ua...](https://globalnews.ca/news/4684113/matthew-hedges-student-uae-prison-
spying/)

> Hedges, a 31-year-old doctoral student at Durham University, has been held
> in the UAE since May 5, when he was arrested at Dubai International Airport
> after a two-week research visit.

Surely you can't spy in any significant way on a country you entered 2 weeks
ago.

> The hearing lasted less than five minutes and his lawyer was not present,
> his family said.

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Kaveren
Surely even if he is a spy, the UK will eventually be able to negotiate his
release? How many years could this take? UAE has a lot of revenue from
tourism, I don't know how much of that is from the UK, but I assume that
provides enough leverage to get something going. I just don't see a life
sentence being a true life sentence for any _citizen_ Westerner caught by a
nation like the UAE.

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fyfy18
UAE and UK are pretty must best friends. Historically they have strong ties
from the days of the British empire (Britain was allied with most of the Gulf
countries to secure trade routes to India), and even now there are very strong
political, economic and royal ties to the country. Most of the Western expats
living there are from the UK, and there are a lot of UK financial companies
with offices there. Going the other way, London is the place to go for
Emiratis that want to escape the summer heat. I'm sure there is a lot more
going on behind the scenes to provoke this reaction.

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arsalanb
How is this relevant to HN? Isn't "most political stuff" explicitly off topic?

Also, most people calling out UAE to be a "dangerous" place and make
misinformed should really learn more before making blanket statements. I have
lived there for half of my life and also lived in the world "largest
democracy" and also in the US. I feel safer in the UAE as an immigrant than I
do in either of those places.

For context, in India you have PSA, AFSPA, etc which are barbaric laws to
which thousands of civilians have lost their lives. In the U.S, most of my
Muslim friends (and myself included) feel constantly threatened by
racism/xenophobia (this includes physical attacks).

Edit: PSA or Public Safety Act is when the Indian Government can "legally"
detain you in Kashmir (an area illegally occupied by India, disregarding UN
resolutions to hold a referendum) under the pretext that you are a threat to
public safety. Children as young as 14 years old have been booked under this
act, and jailed.

AFSPA (Armed Forced Special Powers Act) is when the Indian Armed forces can
put a bullet in your head and face no judicial probe, which seems like a
violation of international law to me.

Bet Saudi Arabia feels real safe now.

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ap3
Sorry but there are enough incidents coming out of UAE and the arab world
(KSA), where it seems easy to run afoul of the law (alcohol, drugs, sex/rape,
religion) and end up in big trouble

You go after India but don’t reveal what country you hail from though.

The US is so big though that it’s impractical to make such a blanket
statement.

There are mosques in every big city- no one seems to be opressed because of
their religious views. You will never be judged for offending a deity or the
government.

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arsalanb
I am from Indian occupied Kashmir.

I guess I would say there are other cultures in the world centered around
other belief systems (not always religious) that are impossible to grasp as an
outsider. As somebody who has lived in both KSA and UAE for a long time, I can
tell you that people from the UAE are the most generous, kind, and honestly
classy people you will come across (something that is not accounted for when
generalizing them as a barbaric people like many do in this post)

I have never seen an Emirati as much as yell at somebody in the streets.
Happiness of citizens is actively discussed and worked on, on a government
level. Seeing the police makes me feel safe, not threatened.

Maybe that’s why there are so many expatriates there.

You should totally visit. It’s an amazing place.

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ssijak
True story : I went on a vacation in Dubai and Abu Dabhi with my wife. 1-2
days priot I sold my iphone to some random guy and brought that cash with me.
I imedietly exchanged 100 euros in Dubai after I landed to have some of their
currency for small things. I also exchanged larger amount in a hotel before
paying for it and moving to a different hotel to explore another part of the
emirate.

Anyhow, one day later my phone is ringing with some strange number calling. It
was a manager from the first hotel saying that I used counterfited euro bills
in their hotel. My heart sank reeeally hard in an instant. He said he is sure
because only I exchanged euros before they went to the bank to store the money
or whatever. The bank informed them that they are fake bills and by the law he
said they need to say who used them. BUT, that was my lucky day and the
manager said that they did not report me and will not if I repay them with
real money. I imidately agreed and asked them for a way to pay with a CC
because I was in another part of the emirate, they agreed and that was
settled, I overpeyed a bit because he probably saved me.

After that I ran to my room and took out all the bills I got from the iPhone
sale and me and my wife needed almost an hour to figgure out that they are
really fake, by looking over the internet and checking what is usually harder
to fake. Tell tell sign was the 3d lines/bumps on parts of the bill.
Everything else looked perfectly well!!! Now, I was confused why the money
changer at the airport did not bust me right away so I went to a mall and
exhanged another bill (which was real, not counterfited) and they just took it
without checking. Few days later when leaving the country I was very scared on
the boreder/aurport police check point but everything went well. Uff. I was so
close to having a horror story myself... I immidiately reported to the police
in my country what has happened.

Before this I never ever had such experience and always naively trusted random
people when I bought and sold things on the internet. Now I know better. Was
so close to be really screwed by some random guy because of some small amount
of money.

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arsalanb
So you got scammed on the internet. How is that relevant or have anything to
do with Dubai/Abu Dhabi?

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mzs
for those that can't read WSJ

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-
east-46288510](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-46288510)

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onetimemanytime
These countries are great for vacations, to do business and to work...until
they aren't. In reality, and backed by their laws, they are backward and
savage fifth world countries. Stay the hell away, or at least calculate the
risk of being framed for espionage for telling the truth about the royals or
going to jail for consensual sex.

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gaius
Doesn’t make sense really, the UK military does regular exercises with the
UAE, anything they wanted to know about defence they could just go see

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pavlov
Rule of thumb: don't enter any country where you need an exit visa to leave.

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ssijak
You dont need one in UAE.

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pavlov
My mistake then — neighboring Saudi Arabia and Qatar both have an exit visa
system, AFAIK.

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mikkelam
I used to live there, strange place. Only ever got rejected at clubs for
wearing shorts, can you imagine wearing pants in a desert? fuck all that

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__________ttttt
Yet no word about a Scot being tortured and electrocuted, held in jail for a
year.

[https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/2604512/jagtar-
singh-j...](https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/2604512/jagtar-singh-johal-
charged-funding-murder-of-rss-leaders/)

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justboxing
This was in India. What does it have to do with the U.A.E story???

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__________ttttt
No criticism for India. But there is for uae

