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posted by n1 on Monday March 09 2015, @04:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the fighting-crime dept.

AP reports that Ryan Pate, a helicopter mechanic, took to Facebook while in Florida after a dispute over sick leave with his company and when he returned to Abu Dhabi last month, he was told to report to the police station, where he was arrested for breaking a United Arab Emirates law on slandering his employer. Pate was shown screenshots of the Facebook message and told his employer had filed charges accusing him of breaking wide-ranging Emirates laws that ban slander. The laws were introduced in late 2012 and make it an offense to use the net to mock or deride organizations and individuals. Pate spent about 10 days in jail and is now free on bail awaiting a March 17 trial. His supporters say he faces up to five years in prison and a steep fine if convicted. "I just couldn't register it in my head because as an American growing up in the United States, the First Amendment right is just ingrained in my brain," says Pate. "I never even entertained the fact that I would wind up in prison out here for something I put on Facebook in the United States."

Pate's congressman, Rep. David Jolly, intervened on his constituent's behalf, lobbying the State Department and Emirates officials for help. In a letter to the Emirati attorney general, Jolly emphasized respect for the sovereignty of the country, but argued because the posts occurred while Pate was on American soil, those laws shouldn't apply. "It is deeply troubling that Mr. Pate now faces judicial proceedings over an action that was done legally in his home country," says Jolly. Speaking via phone from his apartment in Abu Dhabi, Pate was remorseful. β€œI just want to apologize to everybody I dragged into this,” he said. β€œIt is embarrassing, and I never meant for this to happen. I let my emotions get the better of me.”

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday March 09 2015, @07:37PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Monday March 09 2015, @07:37PM (#155048)

    More to the point, in most countries in the Middle East, you can, for no reason whatsoever, be locked up, tortured, or executed. Monarchies and dictatorships are like that. And basically any building in Dubai has a body count of slaves (lured under the false pretenses of having a decent job) that died during construction.

    And maybe you begin to understand why the Arab Spring happened. We didn't hear much about the smaller countries like Bahrain that have had uprisings met by arbitrary arrest and just plain killing protesters, but that's what's going on, and the US firmly supports these governments.

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    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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  • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday March 09 2015, @07:56PM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Monday March 09 2015, @07:56PM (#155054) Journal

    Gitmo, Ferguson, Dubai.

  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday March 10 2015, @11:05AM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday March 10 2015, @11:05AM (#155329) Journal

    Yeah, I have to echo hemocyanin, "for no reason whatsoever, be locked up, tortured, or executed" also now describes the United States. How fucked up is that? There is no more claim to freedom, justice, morality, or law left in America. Those are all just "damn pieces of paper," which everyone in government from top to bottom, left to right, has ceased to even pretend to follow anymore. How much longer a country like that, especially with a received national identity like this one's, can continue is anyone's guess. If the former Vice President of the country can brag on national television that he ordered crimes against humanity, and not fear consequences, and the Chicago Police Department can run its own black sites, again, without fear of consequences, then we are not very far removed from Stalinist Russia or Maoist China or Nazi Germany (or pick your own favorite totalitarian regime) at all.

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    Washington DC delenda est.