Dubai jails Nigerian lady for filming maltreatment, family kicks
Dinchi Lar, a Nigerian woman, was imprisoned in the United Arab Emirates for a year after her family claimed she exposed discrimination against Nigerians at the city’s airports.
They made the remarks on Sunday during a demonstration in Abuja in response to her one-year jail term handed down by Dubai authorities.
In a series of tweets published on August 31, Lar claimed to be held at the Dubai airport along with other passengers she said were Nigerians.
She stated, “I am in the Dubai international airport, and I, along with some other Nigerians with valid visas, am being kept in a room hours after arriving, with no reason and no information on what we can do.” Kindly assist me. A majority of us number above twenty.
Lar afterwards wrote a series of tweets in which he claimed that airport staff had made Nigerians feel inferior.
In a Facebook post made on Saturday, her relatives stated she was jailed for exposing the mistreatment of Nigerians in Dubai.
Part of the message read: “It is terrible and regretfully heartrending to notify you all that Dinchi Lar was sentenced to 1yr in prison in Dubai on 12th Oct 22.” Her Nigerian rescuers failed her, and now her family is suffering. Her explanation for the punishment was that she entered the country on a family visa. However, she was in reality accompanying her sister on a trip. A complex and unpleasant situation developed. Although she was arrested for many hours, she was freed upon arrival; nonetheless, she was condemned upon her return to Nigeria.
They’re taking advantage of the fact that she recorded a video recounting the incident and uploaded it to her Twitter page. They blamed cybercrime, as they called it there. She decided to just erase it anyhow. But it didn’t make them any more lenient. She’s been arrested and taken into custody. Protests at the Dubai consulate in Abuja are in the works.
On Sunday, her loved ones demonstrated against her sentence, saying she had been “detained in Dubai since September 6.”
According to a press statement issued by Abdur-Rahman Balogun, head of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission’s Media, Public Relations, and Protocols Unit, Lar was found guilty of violating the cybercrime statute of the United Arab Emirates.
In part, the announcement said, “Under the UAE cybercrime legislation, recording a video or image of someone without his/her agreement and uploading such on social media is an infraction punishable with a one-year prison sentence or a fine between about $69,000 and $137,000, or both.”
Ms. Lar is the one who recorded the viral footage of the UAE official at the airport and shared it on Twitter. She received her sentence on October 12 and has 15 days to file an appeal. The Nigerian Embassy in Dubai has promised Ms. Dunchi Lar moral and consular assistance while she appeals the verdict.
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