so then dubai isn't going to be a tourist hub then?

or just for special tourists?

http://www.latimes.com/

Dubai court sentences couple for sex on beach
Ali Haider / EPA
British tourist Vince Acors, 34, from Bromley, south east London, leaves court after a trial hearing in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in September.
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
5:03 AM PDT, October 16, 2008

CAIRO -- A British couple whose drunken escapade led to sex on the beach, tabloid headlines and a clash between Western permissiveness and Islamic values were sentenced today by a Dubai court to three months in prison.

Vince Acors and Michelle Palmer were each sentenced to jail, fined $272 for drinking alcohol and ordered to be deported immediately upon leaving prison. The pair were found guilty of having premarital sex after a taxi had picked them up from a Champagne brunch at a five-star hotel and drove them to Jumeirah beach in the United Arab Emirates' most culturally tolerant emirate of Dubai.

This verdict does not make sense," Hassan Mattar, the couple's lawyer, told reporters after the guilty verdicts, which also included indecency. "I'm going to appeal it."

Prosecutor Faisal Abdelmalek Ahil said he expected a harsher sentence. "I'm not happy," he said outside of court. "It's very light. It's normal for a sentence to be six months to a year for an offense such as this."

Acors, 34, and Palmer, 36, who was fired from her job as a publishing executive following her arrest, were not in court when the verdict was handed down. Palmer had claimed that she and Acors were only kissing and hugging and that a medical report showed they did not have sex. Mattar argued that testimony from witnesses, including a police officer who said he saw them having sex on a lounger, were false.


The case, which grew out of a tryst on July 5, quickly became a morality tale set amid globalization and Dubai's skyline of sharp-angled, glittering high-rises. The emirate is a financial hub in the Middle East, catering to tourists and multibillion-dollar business deals. It is also an Islamic state straining to balance Western influence and wealth with religious traditions that forbid alcohol, sex outside of marriage and homosexuality.

Police often look the other way when it comes to gambling, prostitution and frolics in the surf. But Muslim conservatives have been warning that Dubai's openness to international markets and its quests to build the world's tallest skyscrapers and sponsor expensive horse races are corrupting society. This is especially sensitive given that foreigners, a mix of Western professionals and Asian laborers, make up 85% of the UAE's population of 5.6 million.

The media in Britain portrayed the case as another disturbing sign of the nation's alcohol problem. The British Broadcasting Co. reported that the verdict shows that "tourists are ignoring the emirate's strict Islamic laws and that the outcome of this case will be a warning that such drunken behavior will not be tolerated in public."

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com