One Month Jail for Kissing in Dubai

British couple will be going to jail for a month for kissing in a restaurant in Dubai.
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One Month Jail for Kissing in Dubai
The Dubai Courts building during a hearing on April 04, 2010, in the case of a British couple sentenced to a month in jail after being convicted of kissing in public in a restaurant in the Muslim Gulf emirate. (Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images)
4/5/2010
Updated:
10/1/2015

<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/Dubai+April+5.jpg" alt="The Dubai Courts building during a hearing on April 04, 2010, in the case of a British couple sentenced to a month in jail after being convicted of kissing in public in a restaurant in the Muslim Gulf emirate. (Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images)" title="The Dubai Courts building during a hearing on April 04, 2010, in the case of a British couple sentenced to a month in jail after being convicted of kissing in public in a restaurant in the Muslim Gulf emirate. (Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1821394"/></a>
The Dubai Courts building during a hearing on April 04, 2010, in the case of a British couple sentenced to a month in jail after being convicted of kissing in public in a restaurant in the Muslim Gulf emirate. (Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images)
A British couple will be going to jail for a month for kissing in a restaurant in Dubai after their sentence was upheld by the Dubai Court of Appeal recently.

Last November the police arrested a 24-year-old expat and a 25-year-old tourist after receiving a complaint from a local woman that the couple were kissing in a restaurant. The court found them guilty of committing an indecency offense. The couple were sentenced to one-month jail, a $300 fine for consuming alcohol, and deportation afterward.

They made bail in return of their passports. During the appeal, local media report the lawyer argued the couple only kissed on the cheeks, which is a “common way of greeting in their country.”

He also argued that the complainant did not actually witness the kissing herself but it was her daughters. The couple has another 30 days to appeal again. The percentage of foreigners living in Dubai is extremely high—up to 85 percent of the population is foreign-born. Several cases of Westerners committing indecency offenses have occurred.