DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — With her passport
back in hand, a Norwegian woman at the center of a Dubai rape claim dispute
said Monday that officials dropped her 16-month sentence for having sex outside
marriage in the latest clash between the city's Islamic-based legal codes and
its international branding as a Western-friendly haven.
Dubai authorities hope
the pardon of the 24-year-old woman will allow them to sidestep another potentially
embarrassing blow to the city's heavily promoted image as a forward-looking
model of luxury, excess and cross-cultural understanding.
"I am very, very
happy," Marte Deborah Dalelv told The Associated Press after she was
cleared by the order of Dubai's ruler. "I am overjoyed."
But the case points to
wider issues embedded in the rapid rise of Gulf centers such as Dubai and
Qatar's capital of Doha, host for the 2022 World Cup. These cities'
cosmopolitan ambitions often find themselves at odds with the tug of
traditional views on sex and alcohol.
Nowhere in the region
are the two sides more in potential conflict than Dubai, where the expatriate
workforce outnumbers locals 5-to-1 and millions of tourists arrive each year
with high-end fun on their minds.
Most foreign residents
and visitors coast through Dubai's tolerant lifestyle. Women in full Islamic
coverings shop alongside others in miniskirts, and liquor flows at resorts and
restaurants. Yet once authorities determine a legal line has been crossed, it's
often difficult and bewildering for the suspects.
Dalelv, in Dubai for a
business meeting, said she told police in March that she was raped by a
co-worker after a night that included cocktails. She was held in custody for
four days and sentenced last week for illicit sex outside marriage and alcohol
consumption — which is technically illegal without a proper license, but the
rule is rarely enforced.
The alleged attacker,
identified as a 33-year-old Sudanese man, was charged with the same offenses
and received a 13-month sentence. He also cleared by a pardon, according to
Dalelv.
Rape prosecutions are
complicated in the United Arab Emirates because — as in some other countries
influenced by Islamic law — conviction requires either a confession or the
testimony of adult male witnesses.
In a twist that often shocks
Western observers, allegations of rape can boomerang into illegal sex charges
for the accuser. In 2008, an Australian woman said she was jailed for eight
months after claiming she was gang-raped at a UAE hotel.
The fears of
sex-outside-marriage charges also lead some single domestic workers in the UAE
to abandon their babies or seek back-room abortions.
Other, less serious,
cases have also shed light on the tensions in Dubai between cosmopolitan
modernity and Muslim legal codes and tribal traditions. In 2009, a British
couple was sentenced to one month each in prison after an Emirati woman claimed
they engaged in an overly passionate kiss. Motorists have been convicted for a
rude gesture in a moment of road rage.
"I have my passport back. I am pardoned,"
said Dalelv, who worked for an interior design firm in Qatar. "I am
free."
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