Woman held in Dubai with daughter after drinking wine on flight

dowie · 12 Aug 2018 at 11:28

If that is the case then she's been rather stupid, still doesn't justify what happened though.

(also at what point did she swear? Was it after she'd already been accused of the alcohol offence?)

Would be helpful if "reports" being referred to were linked to.

kully1972 · 12 Aug 2018 at 11:30

Apart from work reasons or ure Muslim why the **** would you want to go to Dubai@?
Id never go in a million years.

Bonjour · 12 Aug 2018 at 11:34

Whilst it may be accurate, "arrested after drinking glass of wine" <> "arrested for drinking glass of wine".

dowie · 12 Aug 2018 at 11:42

Bonjour said:
Whilst it may be accurate, "arrested after drinking glass of wine" <> "arrested for drinking glass of wine".

True, though she was arrested for drinking a glass of wine (and filming in the airport).

Having an invalid visa and upsetting an official aren't grounds for arrest, if she'd not consumed anything on the flight (and subsequently pulled her phone out when informed she'd broken the law by consuming alcohol) they'd not have had grounds to arrest her.

CaptainRAVE · 12 Aug 2018 at 12:04

kully1972 said:
Apart from work reasons or ure Muslim why the **** would you want to go to Dubai@?
Id never go in a million years.

Sunshine all year round, some of the best hotels in the world. Tax free huge income with loads of benefits.

StriderX · 12 Aug 2018 at 12:08

CaptainRAVE said:
Sunshine all year round, some of the best hotels in the world. Tax free huge income with loads of benefits.

That sunshine will be getting more inhospitable in the future, If Climate change can do one good thing is it'll make the Arab peninsula deadly to live in.

JasonJK · 12 Aug 2018 at 13:12

Roar87 said:
Why do they serve wine if it's illegal? I'm confused.

She wasn't arrested for drinking wine, it was for abuse.

dowie · 12 Aug 2018 at 14:31

JasonJK said:
She wasn't arrested for drinking wine, it was for abuse.

Where was that reported?

Also the person you quoted is correct, drinking alcohol is illegal for tourists.

CaptainRAVE · 12 Aug 2018 at 15:01

dowie said:
Where was that reported?

Also the person you quoted is correct, drinking alcohol is illegal for tourists.

Mostly in the DM so far. Apparently she had an Iranian passport too. Combined with her expired Swedish passport/visa I doubt the whole thing went down too well.

As a British passport holder we generally get treated well there. We have access to their fast track electronic system for a start.

Ultimately we will never know what actually went down.

dowie · 12 Aug 2018 at 15:17

CaptainRAVE said:
Mostly in the DM so far. Apparently she had an Iranian passport too. Combined with her expired Swedish passport/visa I doubt the whole thing went down too well.

Ah, that makes things a lot clearer:

dowie said:
Someone who they suspect is muslim could be at greater risk of getting some heat for drinking over there. Likewise if you're Jewish or if you're say have dual Iranian nationality then you could be treated badly by officials too.

That's probably the key thing, that's likely the reason why the official was being a **** towards her, why she was asked about the alcohol and then the criminal offence mentioned prompting her to (naively) start filming.

She has now apparently had an apology from the Dubai authorities regarding the behaviour of the guy at the airport.

CaptainRAVE · 12 Aug 2018 at 15:28

An apology when they realised it would affect tourism and money spent there.

dowie · 12 Aug 2018 at 15:36

CaptainRAVE said:
An apology when they realised it would affect tourism and money spent there.

Well yes, I wouldn't expect them to be too sincere. They're well aware that they have these anomalies with regards to alcohol and can essentially entrap people at random if they want to, of course they carry on serving alcohol on the state owned plane regardless and don't offer any warning about it being illegal for tourists.

Bonjour · 12 Aug 2018 at 15:48

I think it's being intoxicated in public that's illegal. There are plenty of places in Dubai where foreigners can drink.

dowie · 12 Aug 2018 at 16:15

Bonjour said:
I think it's being intoxicated in public that's illegal. There are plenty of places in Dubai where foreigners can drink.

There are indeed plenty of places in Dubai where foreigners can drink. You require a licence to (legally) purchase alcohol in Dubai, this licence is only issued to non-muslim residents, ergo all tourists drinking there are breaking the law. Shops will check for it before selling alcohol, hotel bars won't.

It isn't generally enforced, unless you do something else wrong or attract the attention of the authorities in some way or are unlucky enough to annoy someone or get caught up in some situation etc.. and then you can find the law enforced.

Ditto to sex outside of marriage, gay couples etc.. illegal but hotels will generally turn a blind eye to it.

DampCat · 12 Aug 2018 at 18:53

Maybe that sheds some light, but nothing will change people's minds over the matter or other similar ones.

dowie · 12 Aug 2018 at 19:00

Yet I suspect they won't be releasing the CCTV footage, would be interesting to see if she releases the mobile footage she shot (assuming they didn't force her to delete it).

peterwalkley · 12 Aug 2018 at 20:38

Expired passport should have been picked up at Gatwick and her not even allowed on the flight.

dowie · 12 Aug 2018 at 20:48

peterwalkley said:
Expired passport should have been picked up at Gatwick and her not even allowed on the flight.

Yeah, it seems rather dubious. Perhaps they meant to write visa. They don't comment on the lack of a phone call to family/friends either.

shine · 12 Aug 2018 at 20:58

peterwalkley said:
Expired passport should have been picked up at Gatwick and her not even allowed on the flight.

dowie said:
Yeah, it seems rather dubious. Perhaps they meant to write visa. They don't comment on the lack of a phone call to family/friends either.

She could have left the UK using her Iranian passport.

dowie · 12 Aug 2018 at 21:02

Perhaps, but it seems unlikely that she'd deliberately try to use an out of date passport - the visa issue sounds more plausible.