London: A UK-based charity has warned British tourists and expatriates in Dubai and across the UAE not to report rape, after a woman who was allegedly gang raped was arrested and charged with ‘extramarital sex’.
According to a report in The Independent, Detained in Dubai, an organisation that assists people who have become victims of injustice in the UAE, has warned against reporting rape or other crimes in the country because of the “manipulation when it comes to criminal accusations” and the “racist” preconceptions held against Western tourists.
Radha Stirling, founder of the charity, said that following the shocking arrest and a spate of recent incidents where rape victims have been detained in the UAE, she encourages woman not to report sexual assault.
Stirling says that it is often assumed in the UAE, which has a strong clubbing scene, that the raped woman was just ‘looking for it’. Because the police get a lot of complaints from disgruntled prostitutes who file false rape cases, they tend to believe that ‘maybe the girl was just drunk and then she regretted it the next day’.
Stirling called the mentality ‘racist’ and said she would not report it even if she were personally raped in the UAE.
Her advice came following the case of a British tourist who was gangraped by two men last month, who has been arrested and charged with 'extra-martial sex' in Dubai after she filed a police complaint regarding sexual assault.
The 25-year-old victim said that she was on a holiday to UAE when she was attacked by two men. Following the incident, the victim lodged a police complaint.
Instead of helping her out, police officials arrested her for breaking Emirati laws against extra-marital sex.
The woman was later released on bail. However her passport was confiscated which meant that she could not travel back to her home country and could face trial for the offence and be awarded punishments such as flogging, jail, deportation or even stoning to death.
"They have taken her passport as lawyers thrash it out. She is staying with an English family but she is absolutely terrified. She went to the police as the victim as one of the worst ordeals imaginable but she is being treated as the criminal,” a family member of the victim was quoted as saying.
Rape cases in UAE often require proofs such as a confession from the rapist or witness statements from adults -- due to which most cases are are often dismissed or turned around to prosecute the victim.
