British woman faces Dubai jail over Facebook 'horse' insult

[muriel_volestrangler]

A British woman is facing two years in jail in Dubai for calling her ex-husband's new wife a "horse" on Facebook, campaigners have said.

Londoner Laleh Shahravesh, 55, was arrested at a Dubai airport after flying there to attend her former husband's funeral.

She faces prosecution over two Facebook comments she posted on pictures of her husband remarrying in 2016.
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She posted two comments in Farsi, including one that said: "I hope you go under the ground you idiot. Damn you. You left me for this horse".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47847740

Two years' jail for an insult? She'd gone to Dubai to take their 14 year old daughter to his funeral.

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. British woman freed in Dubai after conviction for Facebook 'horse' insult

A British woman held in Dubai for describing her ex-husband’s new wife as a horse on Facebook is to be allowed to go home.
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She was told she faced up to two years in jail and a fine of £50,000 for breaking Dubai’s cybercrime laws by posting insults online. Following a hearing on Thursday a judge has ordered Shahravesh to pay a fine of AED 3,000 (£625), and for her passport to be returned.

The Detained in Dubai campaign group, which has been helping Shahravesh, said her lawyer had paid the fine and that she should be home by early next week.
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Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, said: “When cases like this are resolved either through the charges being dropped or through a governmental pardon, or the levelling of a light sentence after a concerted campaign in the international media, while the situation for the individual victim is over, the system that caused that victimisation remains in place, and abuse is inevitably going to occur again.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/11/british-woman-freed-in-dubai-after-conviction-for-facebook-horse-insult