Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos. Courtesy of Detained in Dubai.
- A 21-year-old student from New York says she was arrested after a “humiliating” search at Dubai airport.
- Airport officials charged Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos with assault after she pushed one of them.
- Several Americans have been banned from leaving Dubai due to charges and fraud.
A 21-year-old New York student was arrested in Dubai after airport staff accused her of “assaulting and insulting” her.
According to a press release from Detained in Dubai, an organization that provides advice and legal assistance to foreigners in the United Arab Emirates, Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos was traveling from Istanbul with a friend when the incident occurred in mid-July.
The couple had a 10-hour layover in Dubai, which they preferred to Paris, France. For Polcano De Los Santos, those ten hours have now stretched into several months.
“We thought it would be a more modern and futuristic city, but we were completely wrong,” Polanco De Los Santos said in the press release.
As she went through security, airport officials told her she needed to remove her doctor-prescribed waist training brace. Despite her hesitation, she agreed and was led into a booth with female security guards who were “rough” as they removed the compressor, according to the press release.
“I felt really violated,” Polanco De Los Santos said, adding that she “felt uncomfortable and scared.” When she tried to put the trainer back on herself, which required two people, she cried and asked for help. Security officers did not help and blocked her exit, prompting Polanco De Los Santos to lightly push one of them so she could call her friend for help, the release said.
“I gently touched her arm to guide her out of the way and then frantically started screaming at my friend for help,” she said. Although the search yielded no results, the officers informed her that she was being arrested for “touching the customs officer” and detained her for hours while they lodged the complaint.
Simply filing a criminal or civil lawsuit against someone in Dubai triggers a complicated legal process in which the accused party is banned from leaving the country. In fact, local scammers have been known to use cases like this to extort money from foreigners, claiming they will drop the case in exchange for thousands of dollars.
A Texas woman was held in Dubai for months after she was accused of screaming, which her accusers say violated the country’s obscenity law. She was released after paying more than $1,000 to have the travel ban against her lifted.
Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, said people could be held in the UAE for years on false or minor charges. In another case Stirling is working on, a U.S. veteran has been held in the country for years because of alleged false accusations at his children’s school.
For Polanco De Los Santos, a student at Lehman College, the last few months of moving from one hotel to another while waiting for court hearings have been a disaster.
“Even if Elizabeth wins her case, being forced to remain in the country at her own expense for six months or longer while facing the threat of prison time is an unacceptable consequence of transiting through Dubai,” Stirling said in the release. “That’s just no way to treat visitors.”
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