New Delhi:
A British woman is reportedly facing jail time in Dubai for calling her ex-husband’s new wife a ‘horse’ on Facebook. Laleh Shahravesh, 55, was arrested at a Dubai airport after flying in to attend her former husband's Pedro Manuel Correia Dos Santos's funeral over two Facebook comments she posted on pictures of her late husband's who remarried in 2016.
Laleh Shahravesh, who was reportedly furious with the fact that her husband of 18 years had remarried in 2016 wrote in one of his Facebook posts, "I hope you go under the ground, you idiot. Damn you. You left me for this horse."
Although she had made the comment while she was in the UK, under the UAE's cyber-crime laws, a person can be jailed or fined for making defamatory statements on social media. According to the BBC, Ms. Shahravesh, who is detained in Dubai could be sentenced to up to two years in prison or fined £50,000.
Ms Shahravesh’s daughter, Paris who was with her mother at the time of her arrest had reportedly written a letter to the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid al-Maktoum, stating that her mother had been forced to sign a statement by police that was "written in Arabic, which she did not understand".
She added, "I cannot emphasise enough how scared I felt, especially after losing my father just a week before, as I was having to worry about losing my mother as well."
"I ask kindly: please, please return my mother's passport, and let her come home’’ she added.
Shahravesh, who awaits court hearing claims that she has not been allowed to leave Dubai adding that she has received little help from British authorities.
Radha Stirling, CEO of the human rights organisation, however, has added "The post would never be prosecuted as a criminal offence in England, and if the UAE intends to detain tourists for posts made from England, it will find itself rendered a no go zone to foreigners,".
