From RT

Facebook post lands Australian woman in UAE prison
Published time: July 14, 2015 06:06

A female Australian artist was arrested and jailed in Abu Dhabi for “writing bad words on social media,” after reportedly posting a picture of a car parked across two disabled parking spots on Facebook.

Jodi Magi, 39, was arrested by United Arab Emirates police and put into prison, after being found guilty of “writing bad words on social media about a person,” ABC reported.

“No one is talking to me, no one is telling me what’s going on,” Magi said. “And they were about to put me in male lock-up and then they turned me away – no one knows what to do with me. I’m pretty scared.”

Magi reportedly took a picture of a car parked across two parking spots for the disabled, but with no permit stickers visible. When posting the image to Facebook, she blackened out the license plate number and did not mention any names.

After being detained, Magi said she was driven around in a car for around four hours. She was also forced to sign several documents in Arabic without any translation. It is not yet known how for long she will be imprisoned.

Magi has been living in Abu Dhabi since 2012, teaching design and working on her art projects, which include political satire.

She said that the Australian embassy has failed to provide any real help, aside from advising her to get a lawyer.

“I’m not sure if it was me being naive. I was under the impression that embassies were in countries to help their citizens in times of difficulty,” she said. “But from my experience it seems that their job here seems to be to generate business and they have no interest in anything other than that.”

In a statement to ABC, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said that it “continues to provide consular assistance to an Australian woman detained in Abu Dhabi and that for privacy reasons they cannot provide any more information.”

That's how the Gulf works and anyone living there should know that. Expats need to learn to keep their heads down in places with oppressive regimes...

vladimir wrote:I was under the impression that embassies were in countries to help their citizens in times of difficulty,” she said. “But from my experience it seems that their job here seems to be to generate business and they have no interest in anything other than that.”

I know the feeling. When I first started traveling I thought the purpose of embassies was to hand out free strawberry snowcones to homesick citizens who forgot to pack their snowcone machine. Boy, did that turn out to be a naive assumption. Not only don't they have free snowcones, they get all snippy when you make an issue over it. Turns out they do only passports and other boring stuff, and they even expect you to pay for it, and to have proper documentation and you even have to go to the embassy to pick it up when it is complete. Bastards.

Well, you can't be either an American or a Pommie, because neither are even issuing passports afaik.

The strawberries were eaten at the last Wine and Cheese, sorry about that.

Hopefully the respective state'gov departments will upgrade consular salaries because, Jesus, how can a honky live decently among the brown people and not have strawberries?

Increase danger pay now! Some consular officials are living on less than 2 gin and tonics a day!

I didn't realise you worked so closely with/benefit so much from embassies, you poor bastard, but you do make it soooo obvious, how low can you go?

Hugs, bro!

Why does not Logo gets the same punishment too.

OT: it does seem to be a very minor offense, considering that she did blackout the plates, but the person that she has offended is apparently a major player. Guess she will be deported.
Quite creepy to think that there are people monitoring FB etc 24/24, looking for pictures of badly-parked cars and other such misdemeanours.

(And what do you get for posting a photo of a bacon-burger ?)

Also interesting that while western countries like to give our friends in China lectures on freedom of expression, here, the overwhelming support from her democratic govt is deafening.

"The image that people have of Dubai and Abu Dhabi is at odds with the reality, I think of the situation there. These are highly repressive, increasingly repressive, states," said Nicholas McGeehan, Human Rights Watch researcher on the UAE.
...
Mr McGeehan also urged action on the part of the Australian government and people over the case.

"The only way to get tough is for people in Australia to be outraged about this, and to tell the Australian government 'what the hell are you doing to make sure no charges are pressed and no retribution is taken?'. That's how you get the Emiratis to sit up and take notice," he said.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/australian- ... 714-gibh4s

It might threaten a business, deal, ssshhhh

I wonder how the present Australian government would have acted in 1939?

Probably would have tried to weasel out/allied themselves with Japan for business deals.

Expedient, self-serving, lying human rights abusers...and those are their good points.

vladimir wrote:Well, you can't be either an American or a Pommie, because neither are even issuing passports afaik.

Don't know about the Brits, but you can still get your passport renewed at the American embassy. It's actually issued in the US, but you can still apply for, pay for and receive your new passport through the embassy here. Just did it a month ago.

vladimir wrote:Hopefully the respective state'gov departments will upgrade consular salaries because, Jesus, how can a honky live decently among the brown people and not have strawberries?

You can get strawberries here too, but you have to pay for them yourself. I thought I was entitled to free strawberries on demand from the embassy, much to my disillusionment when it turned out that's not the way embassies work.

Peace, brother.

American Embassies only job is to roll out the red carpet for congressman and US politicians, and as a good 'ol boys/girls club for state department dweebs. "Please pass the bourbon n' branch-water."

Don't, LTO doesn't like reality when it doesn't suit his bros