Marcus Fakana sentenced to a year in prison

[Zippedydodah]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles]]]]
I cannot believe that this lad is going to spend a year in prison- yes, I know that’s the law there, he should have known better etc, etc
I hope that the girl’s mother is ashamed of her actions.
I don’t want to think what the impact will be on Marcus 😥

Yes,but its,one year in a,Dubai prison very different to.a,year in a,prison in the UK.

So basically bugger all.will.happen if they are both the same age,and it's consensual?

The mother is evil.

Both families were beyond foolish for choosing Dubai as a holiday destination.

It's one year in jail, it's not like he's getting his parts chopped off.

One year in a jail system where independent investigators have found widespread electrocution torture, genital torture, physical beatings, sexual abuse and the use of torture poses.

In a jail where ex-prisoners have reported rape (and forced witnessing of rape), virtually no medical care, physical beatings, tasering, attempted murder by guards (neck compression by standing on it).

Sounds fine, doesn't it? Probably about right for a night of consensual sex with someone a few weeks younger than him...

I am sure you would feel the same if it was your son serving a sentence in a Dubai jail for the crime of having consensual sex with a girl who was less than a couple of months off being 18.

The lack of empathy is breathtaking.

What if the woman had been 18 and the boy 17?
Would you feel the same way?

Yep. That sounds like a deserving punishment doesn’t it?! . I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I’m worried he’ll make it out alive and if he does what state he’ll be in.

His worse crime was failing to understand the laws of the country he was going to and having a holiday romance. He doesn’t deserve to suffer for a year in a jail as described above.

According to Rahda Stirling (a Human Rights lawyer with Detained in Dubai), this sort of crime would usually be charged as a misdemeanor, but the Dubai police lied about his age (19 instead of 18) and falsely claimed he was from Pakistan, as that would likely lead to a harsher sentence (which, seemingly, it did).

It was apparently the sex in the car that the mother originally reported as the forced rape and that her daughters dragged into the car park against her will. Hotel CCTV proved she was lying and that her daughter went along willingly.

Her intentions were absolutely vindictive. Had he been charged with rape, god knows how long he’d have got in prison

Plus the original investigation based on the mothers allegation was for non consensual rape so that was the opening premise of the case.

If he was born in Haringey in 2006 then his birth date is recorded as being in the first quarter of the year so he could be 19 quite soon

@clavinova, how do you know this? Did you look his name up on the registry of births and deaths?

Neither do the rest of us presumably, yet we are still able to muster up some compassion.

I feel sorry for Marcus, but British tourists need to wise up to the laws of other countries.

You may think what's happened to Marcus is bad, but spare a thought for poor Otto Warmbier and his family. Otto took a propogander leaflet from a hotel in N Korea and is now dead after suffering torture ...

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Warmbier#:~:text=Warmbier%20never%20regained%20consciousness%20and,of%20oxygen%20to%20the%20brain.

Ok so it's an assumption, there isn't actually any evidence, that's what I was wondering - thank you for responding.

With such an extreme reaction from her I do think there is a good chance she would have also reported had he not been black - but that's not to say I'm disagreeing with you, she probably wasn't happy about his race (that's if she knew he was black).

Awful situation for him anyways, sadly he's not the first person to be treated harshly by the Dubai legal system and he won't be the last.

There's hundreds of thousands of men sitting in jails all across the world right now for far more minor crimes. Being British doesn't give you an exemption.

Shocking situation - the poor young man 😢

This thread is not about them. You seem to spectacularly miss the point with each and every one of your posts.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/marcus-fakana-alawir-prison-dubai-b2664027.html

Just in case anyone is wondering about the prison he is to be sent to. The police and guards seem to be more of a threat than the other offenders. So much for the ‘laws’ over there. It’s corrupt and lawless.

I can only hope that it makes many people think twice about ever setting foot in Dubai.

This violates human rights surely.

I was just thinking the same thing.

More minor than shagging your gf?

Poor kid , we've all done silly things on holiday .

I know it isn't. My point is that he has broken the law in an Islamic country known for its strict laws. In 2020 sex before marriage in the UAE was illegal full stop. He's serving one year in jail for breaking a law, and although I have some empathy I can't bring myself to get worked up over it as if it is some huge miscarriage of justice. The laws there are black and white.