Marcus, from Tottenham, North London, had been enjoying a holiday with his parents when he met a fellow Brit at the same hotel. A holiday fling sparked and the pair spent time together until the girl, also from London, flew back to Britain.
In Dubai, if an adult has a sexual relationship with a person under 18, they can be prosecuted for having a sexual relationship with a minor. The relationship would be legal in the UK.
Marcus and his parents were set to fly back shortly after - but their plans were thrown into chaos when police knocked on their hotel room door. The “terrified” teenager was then reportedly hauled in for questioning without any explanation and held at the Al Barsha Police Station, DID said. He spent three days there, during which time he was not allowed to make a phone call or speak with his parents, it is claimed.
I have the family’s next vacation picked out! Saudi Arabia, where they’ll have a fully stocked bar of alcohol and pork waiting for them to enjoy! What could go wrong!
Stop spending your money in these Islamofascist countries!
I wonder if there is a law in the UK that would allow the parents of the boy to sue the mother of the girl for snitching. Like, she weaponized the laws of another country that criminalize behaviours that are legal in the UK, for things that happened between UK citizens abroad. That sounds like something UK legislators might have the power and incentive to legislate, right?
Also, I would not fault the girl if she hated her horrible mother for the rest of her life.
£20 says she’s white and racist.
The comments in this thread are practically Islamophobic and naive.
When you travel to another country, just abide by its culture and customs.
Like you cant go to India and disrespect cows, or now eat beef in public.
The comments are also naive because they show how unaware the commenters are about what actually goes on in rich countries and events for affluent people.
Uh yeah fuck Islam. Fuck the Judaism and Christianity too. See? Easy.
You know, laws and code have a lot in common. In both, if you change something at the wrong place, another totally unrelated part will behave different or stop working entirelly. And then there’s edge cases, whose handling was entirely forgotten.
Ah, but it’s not unrelated, see, because now the cache invalidation logic that you hacked together to fix it last time isn’t triggering when it should, because you were using that condition as a hack based on the assumption that code wouldn’t be doing what it’s now doing. You’re gonna have to rewrite that entire bit in a more principled way. I think I lost track of the metaphor a bit here.
Is this all just AI talking to each other?
Of course
You Europeans really gotta stop vacationing in fucking Dubai, there are way cooler places to fly to.
It’s fucking Dubai… Why would you want to go there?
A monument to man’s arrogance, literal slaves, rampant misogyny, homophobia Yada Yada. Terrifying laws based on ultra conservative religions. Routinely one of the hottest places in the world and extremely expensive.
Just fucking why?
I have the same mindset against Dubai and would never visit it. That said I know a perfectly normal colleague who has been there with his family 2 or 3 times and said he would probably go there again. Don’t recall why they liked it there that much.
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In its glory days, Britain had plenty of warm spots.
Because for some people those are features.
But for people who those are features, they are very likely to be Muslim or at the least Arabic and therefore, probably somewhat similar to their home.
I’m saying for a westerner, to think you can go the and have a great time safely, you’re deluded.
But for people who those are features, they are very likely to be Muslim or at the least Arabic
Uh, I don’t think so. Perhaps very specifically the religious laws, but besides that you don’t have to look far among westerners to find those for whom…
man’s arrogance, literal slaves, rampant misogyny, homophobia […] one of the hottest places in the world and extremely expensive
… are rather a nice prospect, actually.
This place is so backwards.
Let’s look the past the fact you’re a moron, attempting to make a point on behalf of your brother’s in christ, the gays.
And let’s dive in.
Are there homophobic and misogynistic westerners who like slaves? Absolutely.
Now have a think how many of them also like Muslims and the middle east and want to go to a Muslim country with no alcohol that judges them?
Sshhhhhhh child, no more talking.
Lmao the “shh child” such a bad boy
Hard to feel sorry about anyone travelling to Dubai.
You don’t have to be rich to travel there. My brothers and their mother traveled there, not rich by any means. I’m probably more well off, but I haven’t been there. 🤷♂️
But maybe that wasn’t your point? Sorry if I assumed incorrectly!
I think you’re right, but also it says something about the personality too. I know great, respectable people in their own way who have gone there, but in general I agree with the vibe that it’s for “rich people who don’t care about inequality”
Knowing my family, Hanlon’s razor definitely applies here. People do not always know what’s going on politically or otherwise in a tourist place they visit. My family are not “great respectable people” (they’re good people though), so I’m gonna go with ignorance, for sure. 😅
Not sure why this is down voted lol. I’m just sharing an experience or life situation, and getting down voted. So strange. I feel like I’m back on Reddit. People don’t change from platform to platform, I guess.
They meant traveling to a pseudo-religious dictatorship
I mean… Okay. But… A place can be interesting to visit despite its government. 🤷♂️
That’s not what this is about. Can you understand what you read?
I guess you just wanted to be snappy and leave the conversation? Cool…
I will never understand why this place is idolized by so many people…
If you are talking about social media it is likely that they aren’t allowed to post something negative about the country or else you can be fined. If you are working as an influncer in Dubai you’ll need to obtain an license which regulates what you can post but you basically pay no income taxes
If you are working as an influncer in Dubai you’ll need to obtain an license which regulates what you can post but you basically pay no income taxes
Because the propaganda you’re providing for them would be priceless…
Or why you’d even vacation there. How tf did they convince people to vacation in a desert?
A bit of an unwarranted answer, but many richer Pakistanis go there to buy stuff that isn’t easily available back home. Hence, they become cash cows for the ginormous malls over there (seriously. If you think American malls are big, you haven’t been to Dubai). It’s basically the closest foreign city we have direct flights to, due to our sanctions and all with India. For example, I got my Nintendo 3DS, and later the phone that I’m currently using (Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra), from malls in Dubai.
Seriously, it’s like worse Vegas, and I don’t like Vegas at all
It’s way better than Vegas, at least they maintain the place. Vegas reminded me of a junkyard full of crackheads and flashy lights.
Vegas wasn’t built by slaves.
Vegas is run by people paid below minimum wage.
Cute. They took the passports of Indians who traveled there to build it.
And employers in Vegas threaten the immigrants with deportation if they complain to any authorities about the work conditions. Stop pretending Vegas is somehow good in any way.
And yes, Dubai has bad working conditions too.
I’m curious how the authorities were even aware of this occurring. The article says they were on holiday, so it’s not like there was much time. How did anyone notice their ages? Was it just fishing for a charge because of unrelated reasons?
Probably saw them socializing and then followed him on security cameras. Possibly seeing him go in her hotel room or vice versa. Then they haul him in and he admits what went on
I think everyone here thinks that Dubai is like Saudi Arabia. It’s not. Nobody at all cares who is having sex or not in Dubai, there’s a thriving sex work industry there. The police aren’t monitoring for couples or care. This only got escalated because a mother complained and the daughter was underaged.
If you have money.
Otherwise, the authorization laws are there, ready to be applied when convenient
https://freedomhouse.org/country/united-arab-emirates/freedom-world/2020
Please note freedom house can certainly be considered biased in their rankings, but their descriptions of conditions or situations is relevant
It’s not a free country, but that’s not relevant to the point I was making above. They’re still not sex policing like Afghanistan or Iran. On that topic they’re closer to Las Vegas.
And yes, the authorization laws are everywhere, I know an American who got charged with adultery in the US because he had an unfriendly prosecutor. I think you’re missing my point.
You can have concerns with the bias of the source but it’s relevant for discussion. It’s not like you say, you walk a razor of financially guarded privledge there, and many folks do not live as you describe.
You’re describing the advertised, candy coated version.
Late edit: to compare the authoritarian concerns in UAE / Dubai to the US is disrespectful to folks who live there.
Even later edit, I bet you didn’t see this cause you downvoted me the moment i posted lol,
It’s not a requirement to be Afghanistan-bad to be still a very problematic place, and comparing the private liberties of either to America is a miss.
No. While there is a ton of inequality, there, it still does not change the fact that UAE is not Iran or Afghanistan, it doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, the police will still not arrest you for holding hands in public, police will not stop to ask you if you’re married to the girl you’re with, and if you’re having sex outside of marriage literally nobody will care. UAE does not have morality police like Saudi did. You failing to make this distinction undermines the rest of your argument. As to this story, the police in any country would take notice if a woman called and said her daughter is underage and with a man in a foreign country, so it’s not surprising he got detained and the story progressed from there.
Out of respect, I had late edits focused on the relativism between countries.
Uae / Dubai is a authoritarian surveillance state far beyond the US or any western country. They have the money to be “pro” about it and don’t need roving squads of cops making street arrests. That doesnt mean the civil liberties of many aren’t adjacent to the likes of other worse authoritarian theocracies.
Regarding the later point, I agree, if given a reputable concern from the family, I don’t fault Dubai for making legitimate inquiries, based on evidence.
Aside from those specifics, There is no reason to defend these countries, they won’t reward you.
Fuck Dubai.
Signed me, who grew up there.
What was it like
Sorry for the delay.
The best way to describe Dubai in the late 80s and throughout the 90s was rapid fire change and building like there’s no tomorrow. When I was a kid back then most of the neighborhood where I grew up was still mostly sand lots with no building. It was actually a fairly nice place to live even then, but if you actually had interests in things as a kid you were kinda out of luck. There wasn’t that much to do back then or things to learn to do or clubs you could be a member of. Or maybe there were, but my parents weren’t aware of them.
However if you were a gamer, you were kinda in luck. I grew up with a Commodore 64 and later IBM 386 machine at home and we had no problems getting games for them (and most were pirated since software piracy was so incredibly rampant that people thought the originals were like a rare find). Console games were also sold in many places and Dubai in the 90s was LOUSY with Arcades. Like the principale place I would go to were arcades. Most were hinky-dink holes in the wall full of seedy assholes (not of the drug using variety… because possession of even small quantities of drugs can land you a very long sentence, even life), but if you got them to fuck off it was nice to immerse yourself in those machines.
However Dubai never felt like home. Not for me and not for many other people even if they were born there. This is in no small part owing to the fact that there is no birthright citizenship (with very limited exceptions of course), and also the fact that everyone you will know there is a foreigner who just came in to do a job and leave afterward. This even includes people like my dad who was in the country for nearly 30 years working as a computer engineer for various companies (he was paid very well for his services). The racism that exists there is also quite palatable. Nowadays they have hate crime and hate speech legislation that may or may not curb some people’s racist expressions, but back then, you basically had people who had no problem saying they would want nothing to do with ‘dirty people’ that was very thinly veiled racism. I was on the receiving end of a world of bullying and mistreatment from Indians, Filipinos, and Emaratis who all didn’t seem to compute it in their minds that I was fully human. The Indians were, to a large extent, the worse of the bunch in that regard. I had people stab my eyes and had been absent mindly cut by sharp objects from (they were being VERY negligent with their shit) and they reacted to me saying ‘you cut me! I’m bleeding!’ like someone would react to radio static. They simply did not understand why them phyiscally harming me would lead me to having an outburst against them.
In short, it was generally shit all around and I am glad I am not there anymore.
Man I’d be interested to hear about that. Any interesting insights?
Like any hotspot for the wealthy: hypocrisy and corruption as far as the eye can see.
I really hope y’all ain’t defending his actions. The age of consent is the age of consent. That he couldn’t keep it in his pants is on him. It doesn’t matter what the AoC in UK is when you’re in another country.
The law not having a provision for such a situation is a completely separate issue. To criticise that is valid. It still doesn’t give him an excuse to break it.
The age difference is less than a year are you fucking insane, legality is not morality and we should always push back against unjust laws
Weird hill to die on but ok. Again, the law itself can be argued about, breaking it not really. No one made him jump in bed, nor is the law some violation of human rights. “Don’t shag people under 18” is not a tall ask.
“Don’t shag people under 18” is not a tall ask.
For people with fully formed brains, sure.
For a literal teenager going through puberty, on vacation in a hot, foreign place, that runs into someone they’re attracted to who is from the same place as them? Yeah, not so much. It’s literal biology.
