A student from the United States has been given a one-year prison term for touching a customs official at an airport in Dubai.
Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos, a 21-year-old student at Lehman College, was taken into custody while waiting for her next flight at Dubai International Airport in July.
De Los Santos came to the city while she was returning home from a trip to Istanbul. After getting off the plane, she was stopped by airport security.
According to the NGO Detained in Dubai, customs officials told De Los Santos to take off her medical waist trainer. She had to wear it because she had surgery earlier this year.
Detained in Dubai said that De Los Santos couldn’t remove the device on her own. Two women security guards made fun of her and talked in a different language, and they didn’t want to assist her when she was trying to remove the object and hurting.
De Los Santos said, “I softly touched her arm to lead her away, then I desperately began crying to my friend for assistance,” to the NGO.
The whole situation made De Los Santos feel embarrassed and violated, according to Detained in Dubai.
A man who worked in customs let his friend help him. But then, De Los Santos was told she was being held by this lady officer because she had touched her.
Detained in Dubai said that De Los Santos was made to sign a paper in Arabic and then she was told that she was not allowed to leave the country.
‘Elizabeth originally planned to just pass through Dubai for six hours, but she has been stuck there for several months now and has had to spend $50,000 on various expenses and paying lawyers,’ explained Radha Stirling, the CEO of Detained in Dubai.
Earlier this week, De Los Santos was given a punishment of one year in jail and told to pay 10,000 Emirati dirham for the incident that happened in July.
Officials in the UAE planned to send De Los Santos back to her home country after she paid a fine. However, customs officials objected and took legal action before she could leave.
‘Either they want to put her in jail or they want to force her to pay them money,’ Stirling said in simpler terms.
Detained in Dubai said they were in contact with De Los Santos’s representative in Congress, Ritchie Torres from New York.
The US State Department did not respond to a request for comment about the situation.
The US State Department has given a level 2 warning for travel to the UAE. They want American citizens to be more careful when visiting the country.
The agency also advises that US citizens who are planning to travel abroad should learn about the laws of the country they will be visiting.
The State Department said that the laws on how people should behave in public and what is considered right and wrong are much stricter in the UAE than in the United States.
Some examples of behavior that is against the law include making mean hand movements, using bad words, touching another person without their permission, and saying mean things about the UAE, the royal families, the local governments, or other people.
The State Department warned that travelers should remember that there are many different cultures in the UAE, and they should be aware that some actions, such as what they wear, could attract unwanted attention.
Date: