Coronavirus: UAE attaches fine, jail term to discrimination

The United Arab Emirates Federal Public Prosecution has warned its citizens against committing any act of or similar to discrimination against victims of coronavirus.

FPP disclosed that offenders would be fined up to Dh1 million or a jail term of 5 years minimum, if found guilty.

This was published on Public Prosecution’s Twitter page via a video which advised people not to commit any form of discrimination.

The video explained that according to Article 6 of the Federal Decree Law No. 2 of 2015 on Combating Discrimination and Hatred, “Any person, who commits any act of discrimination of any form by any means of expression or by any other means, shall be sentenced to imprisonment for a period not less than five years, and by a fine not less than Dh500,000 and not exceeding Dh1 million or either one of these two penalties”.

This was necessary after the Federal Investigations office of the Public Prosecution saw a video of an Emirati media person named TM who was arrested for his racist comments, being circulated online.

The video created divisions based on ethnicity and nationality among the various communities living in the UAE. The video was particularly offensive to one community.

This was found to be an affront to the UAE and its unrelenting efforts to disseminate the values of tolerance, besides violating the UAE’s foundation principles of justice and equality.

The UAE law criminalizes any acts that stoke religious hatred and/or which insult religion through any form of expression, be it speech or the written word, books, pamphlets or via online media.

The law also includes provisions for punishing anyone for terming other religious groups or individuals as infidels, or unbelievers and criminalizes any act that amounts to abuse of religion or vandalism of religious rituals, holy sites or symbols.