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.
Cultural norms are factors in all legal systems, to pretend otherwise is to be (in your parlance) “dumb”.
Just because it’s normal, doesn’t make it any less fucking stupid. Your argument is literally just more “it’s just the way it is”, which is again, fucking stupid. “appeal to tradition”
Again, that is what ALL legal systems do. Judeo-Christian “values” are what underpin legal systems in the Western world. The notion of “rights” and “privileges” stem from local tradition, they are not universal.
It isn’t stupid to point out the truth but your inability to use civilized language is telling - it fully explains to me why you are so offended that somebody is being held to account for using impolite language for no justifiable reason.
Your clear sense of smug superiority is also pretty telling why you feel there’s no problem here. Real “they aren’t hurting the right people” energy. And you can’t defend your argument with anything beyond “it’s the way it is”, so resort to ad hominem. Have a nice day Bruh
If your intention is to provide an explanation, that’s a good point.
If your intention is to justify that law in a broad moral context then “it’s the culture there” really isn’t a valid justification, unless the point you want to make is that the country’s culture is inconsistent with present day broad moral context, in which case it sounds about right.
Who gets to dictate present day broad moral context? Is a vote taken on such?
If a vote was taken, of all the people of the West, and all the people of whatever you define as not the west, and you asked all the free people AND slaves whether they think slavery is good, what do YOU think the results would be? There’s your Present Day Broad Moral Context. Nobody wants to be a slave. You don’t want to be a slave. Slavery is bad for humans to do to one another. This is easy.