British Tourist ‘Gang-Raped’ In Dubai Charged With ‘Extra-Marital Sex’ Offense: Faces Long Prison Sentence, Flogging Or Stoning To Death If Convicted

Police authorities in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), arrested, locked up, and charged a female British tourist for having “extramarital sex” after she reported that she was gang-raped by two British men. But the men she accused of raping her were allowed to fly back home within hours of the woman being arrested.

According to the U.K.-based group Detained in Dubai, which provides assistance to “victims of injustice” in the UAE, the 25-year-old British woman was visiting Dubai in the UAE as a tourist last month when she reported to the local police that she was overpowered and gang-raped by two British men. But police arrested her promptly and charged her under Emirati Sharia law with committing an offense of “having sex outside marriage,” that is, premarital or extramarital sex.

The country’s Islamic law bans consenting adults from “having sex outside marriage,” according to RT.

Detained in Dubai reports that if convicted the woman faces a long prison sentence or severe corporal punishment that may involve canning and flogging.

She also faces capital punishment, such as stoning to death.

The police authorities have since released the woman on bail, but they confiscated her international travel passport to prevent her from leaving the country. She is now stranded in the country in need of about $30,000 for legal fees.

But her alleged male attackers were allowed to fly home to Birmingham, according to The Sun, which reportedly interviewed a close friend of the young woman’s family.

“They have taken her passport as lawyers thrash it out,” the family friend told The Sun. “She is staying with an English family but she is absolutely terrified. She went to the police as the victim of one of the worst ordeals imaginable but she is being treated as the criminal.”

According to the family friend, the young woman traveled with a relative to Dubai for a short vacation after leaving her job as an IT consultant. She had planned to go on a trip around the world after returning from visiting Dubai, The Sun reports.

But while staying in Dubai, the woman, who is reportedly married, met two British men who allegedly lured her to their hotel room where they allegedly raped her. The men allegedly took turns raping her while filming the acts.

But the local police authorities allowed the men to fly home within five hours after the alleged victim reported the alleged sexual assault.

Members of the family of the woman in Britain have complained that the British police authorities were not taking action against the alleged rapists.

“We know who the culprits are but as far as I’m aware West Midlands Police aren’t doing anything,” the young woman’s mother said during an interview at her home in Cheshire, England, according to The Sun.

“We haven’t been getting help anywhere,” her father added.

But the U.K. Foreign Office said it was aware of the case and was working to help the family.

Meanwhile, the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office said they were confirming details of the charges of “extramarital sex” against the woman, Detained in Dubai reports.

A spokesperson for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office responded to inquiries, saying, “if the facts bear it out, [the case] deserves the utmost concern.”

“The UAE has a long history of penalizing rape victims,” Radha Stirling, director of Detained in Dubai, said. “We have been involved with several cases in the past where this has happened, and we work with the lawyers and families and have campaigned to change attitudes in the police and judiciary. Recent cases show that it is still not safe for victims to report these crimes to the police without the risk of suffering a double punishment.”

“This is tremendously disturbing,” Stirling said while commenting on the fact that the alleged attackers were allowed to return to the UK, with no charges filed against them. “Police regularly fail to differentiate between consensual intercourse and violent rape. Victims go to them expecting justice and end up being prosecuted. They not only invalidate their victimization, they actually punish them for it.”

UAE law criminalizes all sex outside of marriage. The country’s authorities enforce the law and its penalties on foreigners regardless of their previous relationship before visiting the country.

“It’s against the law to live together, or to share the same hotel room, with someone of the opposite sex to whom you aren’t married or closely related,” reads an advice to British travelers and tourists in the UAE issued by the British government.

“[Tourists] run the risk of prosecution, imprisonment and/or a fine and deportation [if they’re a found to have broken the law],” the warning reads.

[Featured Image by David Carillet/Shutterstock]