Traveller insults Dubai airport officers, gets suspended jail term

The 36-year-old woman, holder of a visit visa, was given six months in jail, to be followed by deportation, by a lower court.

A Malaysian woman, who had been sentenced to seven months in jail by a lower court for insulting two public employees at the Dubai International Airport and snapping their pictures without their permission, was given a suspended execution of the jail term on appeal.

The 36-year-old woman, holder of a visit visa, was given six months in jail, to be followed by deportation, by the Court of Misdemeanors in February for insulting two on-duty police officers. She was given an additional one month in jail for breaching the privacy of the on- duty public employees by snapping their pictures with her mobile phone against their will and threatening to post them on social media.

However, the Court of Appeal suspended the execution of the jail term for three years. It also ordered that the deportation procedure be cancelled.

The appellate court also ordered that the woman's mobile phone be confiscated and that the Dh 500 appeal fee be returned to her.

The incident took place on January 25. According to prosecution records, the woman had booked online with a ticketing agency but at terminal 3 of the airport she was shocked to learn that there was no booking in her name. As she could not obtain a boarding ticket, she became angry and blamed it on the airline itself even though she did not book with it in the first place.
She was escorted by an employee to the airline office where they tried in vain to explain to her that it was not their fault and were not the right authority to handle the matter.

At the police centre at the airport, she did not calm down and became angry because she missed the flight. She talked in an abusive and disrespectful manner.

She did not stop there but she wanted to click the pictures of the complainant and his colleague with her phone saying explicitly she would post them on Facebook to let others know how she felt.

The woman admitted during the public prosecution investigation that she lost her cool because of a problem with the airline.

She vented her anger on employees who did not have anything to do with her problem. She confessed she used a bad language with them and clicked their photos.

When the public prosecution referred the woman to court, they advised all visitors and residents to respect public employees and try to solve their problems calmly and in a civilized manner rather than by coercion or with inappropriate language.

They also pointed out that the laws protect all individuals against the misuse of modern technology in the breach of others' privacy or in any attempt to blackmail or threaten to defame them with the use of such ways of communication against their privacy rights.

mary@khaleejtiems.com