Meanwhile, In Dubai

Excerpt from this August 10, 2009 article in the Washington Post:

...A haven of stability in a region of tumult, Dubai is usually a place people flee to, not from. Foreigners, lured by what President Obama in a June speech in Cairo hailed as the "astonishing progress" of this autocratic but vibrant Persian Gulf metropolis, account for more than 90 percent of the population, and 99 percent of private-sector workers.

But a severe economic slump has reversed the flow. Those who came to Dubai seeking fortunes in property, banking and luxury goodies for the rich now face a less alluring prospect -- a prison cell or furtive flight. Only a tiny minority has been picked up by police but, says a longtime foreign resident who runs a company here, "It's all a bit scary. They are looking for people to carry the can." The foreign resident, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely, said a British neighbor was picked up last year.

The turbulence is a blow to a place that promoted itself as the Middle East's answer to Hong Kong or Singapore. It is also a setback for Washington, which has for years touted Dubai as a model of a modern, prosperous Muslim land that, though far from democratic, seemed anchored in the rule of law and committed to basic rights.

Among those who have been locked up are a JPMorgan investment banker; American, British and other foreign property developers; a German yachtmaker; and two Australians who worked as senior executives of what was to be the world's largest waterfront development. The gigantic project had been launched by Nakheel, the crisis-battered property arm of Dubai World and builder of Dubai's signature palm-tree-shaped resort islands.

A few have been convicted, mostly for bouncing checks. Those still awaiting trial often waited many months in jail before being charged: The two Australians, for instance, were arrested in January, held in solitary confinement for seven weeks and then finally charged, with fraud-related offences, last month, said their Melbourne lawyer, Martin Amad.

A banker who headed JPMorgan's Dubai office and its Islamic banking business was first jailed in June last year but was charged, also in connection with fraud, only this spring. JPMorgan said the alleged crimes do not relate to his work at the bank, which he joined in 2007 and quit in April this year while in detention.

Some have complained through lawyers of being deprived of sleep, denied food for days and routinely menaced. "We will insert needles into your nose again and again," a security officer can be heard telling Jaubert, the spy turned submarine-maker, on an audio recording, which the Frenchman said was made on his cellphone during an interrogation before he fled. "Do you know how painful it is to have needles put inside your nose repeatedly and then twisted around? Do you think you can resist this kind of pain?"

Jaubert said the interrogation was conducted by two men in long white robes in a bare, windowless room on April 22, 2007, at Dubai's Al Muraggabat Police Station. On the recording, the interrogators described themselves as state security officers, with one warning Jaubert that "we are above the police, we are above the judges. We can keep here you forever."

Dubai's Media Affairs Office said the emirate "prides itself on a well-established system of law and order and judicial fairness."...

Read the entire article HERE.

You might want to reconsider going to Dubai for vacation. Heh.