Life Sentence for British Student Draws Criticism for U.A.E
wsj.com
wsj.com
I would take that than say 1 day in a mexican prison run by the drug cartel
That's because prosecutors in Japan and other countries generally go after "sure" cases.
Canada has a 97% conviction. US has a 93% conviction rate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_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.
At least he'll get court case rather than disappearing in a japanese embassy.
Japan has its problem but it's absurd to compare it to the horrors in the middle east.
International spying in this case? I'm not sure thats a minor infraction
In this case I still don’t see what warrants a life sentence.
The idea was to move there with her husband, who was an anaesthiologist. Despite loving him dearly and trusting him implicitly she turned down the financially lucrative offer when she discovered that any time she wanted to leave the country she'd have to have a letter signed by him giving his permission. The risk was low but the stakes were far too high.
Does this clause apply to visitors / non-native citizens / non-muslims also? I thought it only applied to native saudi's from that Saud[1] dude's bloodline.
Not trolling, really don't know.
In current case, it seems journalists are keeping most details under the wraps. Only thing I can get is that the guy was doing some kind of study on security changes that occurred after Arab spring. He should have known that the topic of rebellion would be big hot potato in any monarchy and the country-wide security study adds lot of fire on the top. The right way to do this would be take permission from the local government, inform them things you will be collecting and make sure embassy works with you on this. There is no information on whether this happened.
Finally, why should any one visit such countries? World is not perfect but is wonderful. Human rights and individual freedom are relatively new things and just 300 years ago doing some study like this even in Western country would have same predicament. It is still important to experience and understand different cultures, points of views and communicate yours to others. That is the essence of travelling the world.
My "wife" of 12 years is common-law because we don't believe in marriage, I'm not going to risk our lives because they don't respect that.
I'm not saying don't travel to Islamic countries, I'm saying don't travel somewhere you can get royally fucked for something minor.
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.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-512815/Briton-jaile...
UAE is in the hot region and their CID is doing an amazing job keeping UAE safe. As I recall this guy's case was somehow related to other much more serious cases where a bunch of UAE nationals got their life sentences as well. I, personally, have little sympathy to those who sabotage and disrupt peace in the region and I have no reasons to suspect CID to play stupid games in this particular case.
That said, there are entire communities in the US of people who set up cameras outside of airports and military bases to record activities. The folks at airports are doing it to photograph planes, and the people at military bases are usually doing it to see if they can provoke any sort of response. Even the TSA says they can't stop you from photographing security checkpoints, although they would prefer it if you didn't. AFAIK none of these people have been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Could you point to a real-life example you have in mind, in which either (or both) the judicial process was so non-transparent, or the punishment so severe? I mean, the obvious situation that comes to mind is Gitmo, but I couldn't think of instances of Gitmo detainees who were legal immigrants or on student visas.
There was recently a Chinese intelligence officer who was extradited to the U.S. to face espionage charges, but AFAIK, that case will be handled in open trial: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/us/politics/china-spy-esp...
We don't seem to really know anything about UAE's case at the present moment. From The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/21/british-academ...
> However, Emirati press claimed Hedges had confessed to the charges against him and the case had been passed to the state security court. There is no independent confirmation of this claim. Hedges was taken to court in Abu Dhabi twice in October, with the case being adjourned both times.
Again, Gitmo notwithstanding, I can't recall a U.S. case being handle in this fashion:
> Tejada said that during the first six weeks he was interrogated without a lawyer or consular access, and held in “inhuman” conditions under which his mental health deteriorated. During this time he was allegedly made to sign a document in Arabic which it has now been disclosed was a confession statement. Hedges does not speak or read Arabic.
If they did their observations within the law, I don't see what they could be obtained or convicted of.
For high profile spying you would get consular help and maybe a spy trade.
No way you would be brought up on made up charges. You also have to consider the free press and the pressure they can apply in the US vs elsewhere.
The UAE press (or KSA, China, etc) operates under much different constraints.
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.
Violations of civil liberties occur in every country, but If you really believe that the rate and intensity of such is exactly the same in the UK as it is in Saudi Arabia or UAE, then you’re monumentally deluded.
Did the UK/US not invade Iraq/Afghanistan, are we not still there? How many governments have we overthrown? How many people have we unjustly imprisoned/killed?
It's not a 1 to 1 type comparison but in my mind it's hard to imagine the US wasn't the most cruel or barbarous civilization in the past 80 years or so.
Noam Chomsky: “Remember the worst terrorist campaign in the world by far is the one that’s being orchestrated in Washington. That’s the global assassination campaign. There’s never been a terrorist campaign of that scale.”
You have tons of appeals in US, UK and other Western countries and judges are (at least in USA) super educated and independent. You can be SCREWED if you're poor, the state is hellbent of jailing you and no one takes up your cause but odds of something like the above happening in US or UK are close to zero.
Federal judges, at least in USA, love to keep their independence and to hold the state's feet at the fire. They are a third and SEPARATE branch, in 99% of cases taking a pay reduction to serve.
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.
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.
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.
This geopolitical calculus might have made sense when there was a real danger of such countries being swallowed up into the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. But it would be much better now to disengage as much as possible with the governments of countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/2604512/jagtar-singh-j...