A court in Dubai has sentenced a young Norwegian woman, Marte Deborah Dalelv, to 16 months in jail after she brought charges of rape against a colleague. Dismissing her allegations, the court saw fit instead to find her guilty of drinking alcohol and wanting the sex that she alleged was forced upon her. Meanwhile she was let go by her Qatar-born employer, the interior designer Wissam al Mana, who is otherwise known as Janet Jackson’s latest husband. (See postscript below for a statement from al Mana’s company.)
The circumstances are complicated but, after listening to an interview Dalelv has given to Ritula Shah of the BBC’s World Service, it seems very likely that she is the victim of a grotesque miscarriage of justice. As for her colleague, he is probably a local man though he seems not to have been named in English-language accounts.
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But Dubai’s official religion is Islam — and not a particularly liberal brand. This can make for problems for Westerners. Western women in particular are not always welcome. This despite the fact that Dubai features one of the most disturbingly imbalanced male-female ratios in world history: in the overall population, males outnumber females more than three to one. The ratio for adults is probably even more imbalanced. Foreign prostitutes, particularly Russian and Indian ones, seem to be welcome. For other foreign women, it is legal to take a job, drive and own property, and a good number of wives of Western businessmen and singles live and work there. But it is not uncommon for foreigners to fall afoul of crackdowns on behavior that authorities consider offensive, ranging from kissing in public to wearing revealing clothing to adultery. The status of ordinary decent local women in Dubai is powerfully symbolized by the fact that wives can be beaten with impunity so long as no marks are left. Full story...
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The circumstances are complicated but, after listening to an interview Dalelv has given to Ritula Shah of the BBC’s World Service, it seems very likely that she is the victim of a grotesque miscarriage of justice. As for her colleague, he is probably a local man though he seems not to have been named in English-language accounts.
(...)
But Dubai’s official religion is Islam — and not a particularly liberal brand. This can make for problems for Westerners. Western women in particular are not always welcome. This despite the fact that Dubai features one of the most disturbingly imbalanced male-female ratios in world history: in the overall population, males outnumber females more than three to one. The ratio for adults is probably even more imbalanced. Foreign prostitutes, particularly Russian and Indian ones, seem to be welcome. For other foreign women, it is legal to take a job, drive and own property, and a good number of wives of Western businessmen and singles live and work there. But it is not uncommon for foreigners to fall afoul of crackdowns on behavior that authorities consider offensive, ranging from kissing in public to wearing revealing clothing to adultery. The status of ordinary decent local women in Dubai is powerfully symbolized by the fact that wives can be beaten with impunity so long as no marks are left. Full story...
Related posts:
- Norway slams Dubai jailing of rape victim...
- Norwegian women reported rape in Dubai and convicted of sex outside marriage...
- Thinking of working in Dubai? Ladies beware: the Alicia Gali horror story (Video)
- Australian woman drugged and raped by three men in UAE, then jailed for "adultery..."
- Accused of sleeping with her boss, British chick jailed in UAE...
- Sex in Dubai and the morality police...
- Raped pupil in Indonesia expelled for "tarnishing school's image..." WTF!
- 15-year-old rape victim in Maldives sentenced to 100 lashes for pre-marital sex.
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