Cat Le-Huy, Dubai and the moral high ground
Cat Le-Huy is a friend of friends who has been “detained” entering Dubai. I put detained in quotes, because he’s been thrown into prison, where he’s now spent a few weeks.
He claims he was carrying melatonin, which is legal in Dubai, and the authorities have charged that there was .001 gram (1 milligram) of hashish, which is basically some specs of dust. The law firm representing him wants a £25,000 retainer.
It used to be that the United States, the United Kingdom (where Cat lives), and Germany had a certain moral high ground with regards to the arbitrary detention of their citizens. Unfortunately, the executives of our countries have tossed away that high ground with our own arbitrary detentions. In the US, we detain not only foreigners, but our own citizens.
So, what does this mean to you?
First, please donate to Cat’s legal defense fund.
Second, don’t go to Dubai. They’re competing to be the next “Disneyland with the Death Penalty,” and that should hurt their businesses and that should hurt their bizarre attempts to bring in tourists.
It might mean other things, but we’ll leave that for future blog posts.
[Updated: fixed donation link.]
A milligram?
He could get reasonable doubt in front of a US jury by saying he picked up an old Foghat LP he bought at a garage sale.
Ridiculous.
Reminds me of the old Doonesbury where they catch Zonker with two seeds and conclude he’s a dealer.
This is from the country that jailed a Swiss national for four years for having three poppy seeds on his shirt from a bread roll he ate at Heathrow:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7234786.stm
I think I’d go father than say don’t go to Dubai. I suggest you try to discourage your employers from doing business there.