If adultery is against the rules just say no
ANOTHER story about a silly Westerner who goes to the Middle East, makes shed-loads of money and then gets into trouble because she thinks she can get away with flouting the local laws.
The culprit this time around is Sally Antia, a 43-year-old mother of two who has lived with her family in Dubai for at least a decade: Mrs Antia is currently languishing in jail on charges of adultery, having been arrested leaving a hotel with a man who wasn’t her husband.
It was, incidentally, her husband Vincent who allegedly shopped her to the police. Nice guy.
Now of course I don’t believe that people should be put in prison for committing adultery: were that to be the case, at least half the population of this country would be locked up.
But we’re not talking about this country. We’re talking about the United Arab Emirates, where adultery is not only a sin, but a crime.
If you go to someone else’s country, then you have to play by their rules.
If you go to someone else’s country, then you have to play by their rules.
Most ex-pats accept that, which is why there was remarkably little sympathy from those quarters for Vince Acors and Michelle Palmer, the couple found having drunken sex on a beach.
And now Sally Antia, who has lived in Dubai long enough to know what is acceptable behaviour, thought she could bend the rules because her marriage broke down.
Get real, love: there are no exceptions for you or anyone else.
Tim Hancock of Amnesty International, who is campaigning for Mrs Antia, says: “The sex lives of consenting adults simply shouldn’t be a criminal matter.”
I couldn’t agree more, but then I am not in charge of that desert kingdom in which an awful lot of British people make a very good living, tax free, before coming back here, set up for life.
I hope Sally Antia is released soon, but she has been an idiot.
When will they learn?
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