Why New York Student Was Sentenced To One Year In Dubai Prison

Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos, a college student from New York City, was sentenced to one year in prison for allegedly “assaulting and insulting” an airport security guard during a flight connection in Dubai during the summer.

According to the advocacy group Detained in Dubai, the 21-year-old Lehman College student was sentenced on Monday after being held in Dubai for nearly three months with a travel ban imposed on her.

She needed a break after the death of her 44-year-old father and surgery, so she went to Istanbul with a friend for a few days. Los Santos and her friend returned to New York on July 14 after their trip. Their flight was originally planned to connect in Paris, but they changed their ticket to transfer to Dubai so they could visit the famous city during their ten-hour layover.

“We thought it would be a more modern and futuristic city, but we were completely wrong,” Los Santos shared.

Things deteriorated further. Los Santos was ordered to remove a waist compressor she had no choice but to wear after a recent surgery by Dubai airport personnel. The compressor was removed by female personnel, but Los Santos’ mother claimed that they were rough and harmed her daughter’s still-healing surgery wounds in the private booth where she was brought.

They also laughed at her, and when she asked for help putting back the complicated outfit, they refused, according to Los Santos’ mother. Los Santos recalled “feeling uncomfortable and afraid. I felt really violated.”

She explained that the compressor had “many many pins and you need to stretch the edges and clip small skinny pins together close to the body,” and as staff ignored her pleas for help, Los Santos leaned past a security guard in her path and called out for a friend to come and help her.

According to her, she gently patted the guard’s arm to move herself out of the path before reaching out for help to her companion. Los Santos was immediately held in a room for many hours while the security guard she had touched filed a report. She couldn’t go until she signed a document in Arabic. She did, and she was let to depart.

She discovered the travel ban when she returned to the airport to board her flight to New York, so she had no choice but to remain in the nation while the allegations against her were investigated in court.

when spending weeks in hotels, a judge allowed her to leave when she paid 10,000 AED (about $2,700 USD), but Dubai prosecutors appealed, and she was sentenced to a year in prison.

Los Santos was supposed to return to work on July 17, but she has missed multiple physical therapy appointments and treatments in the United States, where she visits the doctor’s office every other day while still receiving treatment. Her university began classes while she was away, and her apartment lease expired in September.

Radha Stirling, the Detained in Dubai founder, remarked, “Elizabeth only intended to transit through Dubai for six hours, but she’s been there for months on end and has lost $50,000 in expenses and lawyers’ costs. On top of being humiliated and traumatized by airport staff, Elizabeth has suffered months of being forced to stay in an expensive country, pay expensive lawyers, and miss out on her university studies.”

Although the next hearing is scheduled on October 23, Los Santos has been advised that the prosecution may file another appeal and keep her in Dubai until the verdict is made.

“Even if Elizabeth wins her case, six months or more of being forced to stay in the country at her own cost while under the very real threat of imprisonment is an unacceptable consequence of transiting through Dubai,” Stirling expressed.

“She is under the most incredible stress, which is impacting her physical and mental health, disrupting her entire life, and scarring her long-term. This is simply no way to treat visitors. It’s outrageous.”

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