How swearing at your coworker via WhatsApp could cost you $68,000 A bloke in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is facing hefty fines and possibly deportation after he swore at a colleague on WhatsApp, it is reported. He was ordered to cough up DHS 3,000 (£521, US$816) by the Mid-East nation's lower courts after he was found guilty of breaking cyber-crime laws by sending the insulting message. …
They probably never heard of it...
What's more sickening is that your Government, amongst soo many others want to pas other such dimwitted, and contemptuous laws striping Billions of People their rights to free speech on the 'net 'cause 'oh Holly Zarquon you might offend someones special wittle snowflake, and risk upsetting their applecart.
Personally these Persons should just GTFO the 'Net IMHO. Or eles learn 2 mute & block the detritus they find disagreeable. BUT, NO!!! Parlament / Congress / <INSERT OTHER BODY OF POWERS THAT BE!> Need to make Free Speech a hate crime.
Ya, know cause its obviously working well in a pissant backwater you couldn't get me to enter for all the Tea in China... So such Laws must be good right?!
Oh, they've heard of free speech - they just want nothing to do with it.
Oh, and the UAE is not quite a 'pissant backwater'. It's rich and relatively important. It is, however, rather behind the times so far personal rights are concerned.
Of course, many of our 'enlightened', 'Western' governments are regressing somewhat in this area.
Re the UAE being rather behind the times so far as personal rights are concerned...
I think perhaps it regards itself as the FUTURE of human rights, with Sharia and all that, not that we don't have similar controller types in the West. IMO, ours may be more polite. Or not.
@Chris W
Perhaps so, but the issue is not directly the abuse, but the profanity, which is what this law is aimed at.
It is there to sanitise speech - to make speech, and through it, thought, conform to the dictates of the state. In assessing this, remember that the UAE is essentially a collection of monarchies with enforced religious law and it is a crime to insult the members of these rich and powerful ruling families.
So you are going to send profanities to someone for the sake of it? I doubt it, you send them with intent. However if you think you can go about saying whatever you want with impunity try swearing on a street in the UK but don't be suprised if you find yourself in a police cell.
As for insulting the monarchy, don't do it in some European countries otherwise you will also find yourself in a police cell.
Think the US is any better, try defiling, defacing, insulting or even satirizing the US flag and see where it could lead you. HTH can you insult a flag? Tell it its mama's so ugly she could be a stunt double for Le Drapeau Tricolore.
As I pointed out elsewhere those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw bricks.
So you are going to send profanities to someone for the sake of it?
I know quite a few people who do just that. Their speech is peppered with profanities every other sentence, not usually directed at anyone in particular. I don't like it, don't let my kids around them, and try to avoid them myself, but hey they've got a right to speak that way if they want.
However if you think you can go about saying whatever you want with impunity try swearing on a street in the UK but don't be suprised if you find yourself in a police cell.
As for insulting the monarchy, don't do it in some European countries otherwise you will also find yourself in a police cell.
Both examples of why you just think you have freedom of speech. Insulting the monarchy in particular (or government in general) is one of the things the guys who wrote the US Bill of Rights had in mind.
Think the US is any better, try defiling, defacing, insulting or even satirizing the US flag and see where it could lead you.
It's not illegal despite several efforts to outlaw it. All laws prohibiting the desecration of the American flag were invalidated in a 1989 SCOTUS decision (Texas v Johnson) and again in a 1990 decision (US v Eichman). At this point the only way to make flag desecration illegal in the US would be with a Constitutional Amendment, and none along those lines has ever passed the Senate. You don't get arrested for it, as evidenced by the fact that people are posting YouTube videos of themselves stomping on it or burning it and aren't in jail. Do it in the wrong crowd, however, and you are likely to wind up paying a visit to the nearest ER.
There is one particular exception to all the above in the US: Cops get special protections. If you cuss out a cop you're going to jail. All the more reason to treat them with the respect they (usually) deserve in my opinion.
Can the UAE.... One of THE RICHEST NATIONS on the face of this Planet.... Really be called a Third-World Nation?! Yeah I DO GET the small matter that only a select few actually possess the adequate wealth to bribe the local Police with Lambo's, and the like. (Who said Top Gear wasn't educational?!). While the rest of the populace is probably made to just get along...
The question still however (As it is...), still stands...
...third world, a term so thoroughly debased as to be meaningless
Not to mention pretty useless since the end of the cold war. Honestly how many nations have risen or fallen since the planet was divided into three worlds? For that matter how many didn't even exist yet when the second world fell apart?
This new law is less than a month old, so probably the man got the smaller fine previous to that. Then comes the new law and the persecutors prosecutors needed to make an example of someone to to put the Fear of Allah in the people. Since everyone had heard about this draconian edict, they were all on their best behavior.
And so perforce this poor sap became 'It.'
"This new law is less than a month old, so probably the man got the smaller fine previous to that. Then comes the new law and the persecutors prosecutors needed to make an example of someone to to put the Fear of Allah in the people. Since everyone had heard about this draconian edict, they were all on their best behavior.
And so perforce this poor sap became 'It.'"
You have to love retroactive laws. It's like justice, only different.
Threaten an airport here - insult a co-worker over there - who cares about intent IT'S A SERIOUS CRIME!!!
We do still love to feel superior, and we used to be definitely, but I feel we've given away our moral high-ground years ago and seem to be basking in..well "culturalism" (and by that I mean racism at a cultural level).
Looking at the news this week, seemingly we get all precious when one of ours strips off on somebody else's spiritual mountain - but we ourselves can be criminalized for protesting with clothes on our own streets. Moreover, I armed with the very keyboard I have in front of me, can be jailed for hitting keys in the wrong/right order here.
Personally I'd love to live in a country where I can write anything I want onto twitter (if I'd ever understood it) - but that's not the world we UKers seemingly wish to live in.
I miss the old internet. I was civil and lovely to those I met in real life, and the internet gave me somewhere to vent and expand my vocabulary of rhetoric, hyperbole, and good old fashioned 'old english" - and my jousts were met with style, vitriol and panache - and offers of floors to sleep on, beers, and life-long friendships.
"You don't know the content of the message. Don't forget what happened when someone made a one off, off the cuff comment about Doncaster airport. The people making comments about the UAE being backward seem to be throwing bricks in a glass house."
I remember. He was found innocent, and the police and CPS told not to be so stupid.
In the UAE's case, the guy was found guilty, then a new law was introduced, and he was retroactively found guilty under it. This is backward, both ethically and temporally.
> then a new law was introduced, and he was retroactively found guilty under it. This is backward, both ethically and temporally.
Have you read the article or any of the links. He faces a retrial, he has not been found guilty of a further crime.
If you want ethically backward try this http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/mar/15/dwp-law-change-jobseekers-poundlan The bill was passed into law shortly afterwards,
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