Ashleigh Stewart

7 Nov, 13 tweets, 3 min read

🚨Law reforms in the UAE 🚨: The Government has just announced a huge raft of legal reforms in the United Arab Emirates.

The biggest takeaways (a thread):

- Alcohol decriminalised
- Suicide decriminalised
- Male relatives no longer get a lighter sentence for assaulting females

- Drinking, possessing or selling alcohol in authorised areas without an alcohol licence is no longer illegal
- Unmarried couples can now live together
- Tougher punishments for men who harass women
- BIG changes to divorce/ separation & divisions of assets & wills & inheritance

I can't overstate how huge these changes are - will now break each down below:

🚨 Alcohol has been decriminalised in the UAE

This means:
- You no longer need an alcohol licence to buy or drink booze in the UAE - all emirates
- Before now, if you bought or drank alcohol without a license you could be charged (it was rare though)
- Legal drinking age is 21

🚨 Suicide/ attempted suicide has been decriminalised in the UAE

This means:
- before now, suicide was illegal - people who attempted to kill themselves could be imprisoned/ fined
- also, people who tried to give CPR or first aid etc could be blamed for someone's injury or death

🚨Legal reforms for the protection of women in the UAE:

This means:
- ‘honour crimes’ are abolished - used to be a category of crime where a male relative got a lighter sentence for assaulting a female relative
- these will now be treated like any other assault

1/2

- There will now be harsher punishments for men who harass women, no matter how mild or severe
- The punishment for the rape of a minor or someone with "limited mental capacity" is to be execution

2/2

🚨 Divorce/ separation/ wills and inheritance reforms in the UAE

This means:
- the laws from a person's country of origin can now be used for divorces and the division of assets
- previously, Islamic law, or sharia, was used for family law cases involving expats

1/2

- Changes also cover wills/ inheritance
- Before, if someone died - assets could be divided under sharia law
- Now, laws from a person's country or origin applies for how assets are divided among next of kin, unless there's a will (UAE property an exception-falls under UAE law)

🚨 Unmarried couples/ mixed gender flatmates can now live together in the UAE

This means:
- Before now, it was illegal for an unmarried couple (including flatmates of the opposite sex) to share a house
- Those who did could have been penalised, though it was pretty rare

Most of these changes have kind of been the unofficial norm for years. Yes, unmarried couples aren't supposed to live together - but they do. You're not supposed to drink alcohol in a bar without a licence - but people do.

But this is good progress, nonetheless

Here's the news in article form:

apnews.com/article/dubai-…

🚨Important detail in UAE law reforms around sex before marriage (previously illegal) now that it’s legal for unmarried couples to live together

Law doesn’t explicitly permit sex outside of marriage - but says consensual sex will no longer be punished by law

Huge.

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More from @Ash_Stewart_

Ashleigh Stewart

@Ash_Stewart_

11 Oct

The economic fallout of #Covid19 means many blue collar workers in Dubai have been left destitute - no job, visa or money for a flight home

Large groups are now sleeping in parks in Satwa as they await repatriation

A thread & my @Telegraph story below:

telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/0…

Dozens of Sri Lankan expats are the latest to congregate in a Satwa park. Most are on a 3-month visit visa and came to Dubai earlier this year to seek work. Some had jobs but lost them due to the pandemic.

Some have been sleeping in the park for as long as 2 weeks

More than 480,000 Indians, 60,000 Pakistanis & 40,000 Filipinos have been repatriated since March, according to their consulates. There are no estimates on how many expats are out of work, but the consulate of the Philippines says about 30,000 Filipinos had lost their jobs

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Ashleigh Stewart

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Good morning from Jebel Jais! Out in the wilderness today for an exclusive first look at the new Bear Grylls Explorers Camp in Ras Al Khaimah

@RAKTourism @BearGrylls #VisitRasAlKhaimah

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You’ll learn how to use a knife like @sophieprideaux - warrior woman

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Ashleigh Stewart

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15 Sep

Hello from Kenya! This dispatch is coming to you from a beautiful country very much devoid of tourists, but one which is desperate to have you all back.

Not advocating for travelling en masse during #Covid19, but here are 24 reasons it's a GREAT time to go to Kenya:

1. By the numbers:
- Kenya’s total number of #Covid19 cases: 36,205
- Deaths: 624
- Recoveries: 23,243
- Population: 50 million ish
- Tests conducted: 481,982

2. Kenya's international borders have been open since August 1. Their daily #Covid19 cases have decreased since the borders were reopened

3. Getting in: 130 countries are exempt from the 14-day quarantine, including all of the GCC countries & most Western countries

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Ashleigh Stewart

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🚨#Breaking: New Zealand has confirmed its first case of #Covid19 outside managed isolation for the first time in 102 days

Comes after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern scheduled an impromptu press conference with just a few minutes notice late at night in NZ

There are now 4 confirmed cases of #Covid19 cases in New Zealand (other than the 23 in managed isolation), in one family, from an unknown source.

The first case was found in South Auckland, and they have no history of overseas travel.

New Zealand's director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield tells the nation at 9pm at night, after a hasty press conference was called to announce its 4 new community cases of #Covid19: "We have done this before, and we can do it again"

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Ashleigh Stewart

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The existence of "Gulf Standard Time" has irked people in the UAE for decades. Mostly because 6 countries form the Gulf and only 2 use this time zone. The rest use Arabia Standard Time.
So - why does it exist at all?

I found the man who invented it one night when he was 'tired'

.@SultanAlQassemi perhaps said it best.

On GST: “I keep getting invitations to events at Gulf Standard Time, and I end up having to Google it and figure out what that is.

“It’s a false reality, it does not exist, there is no such thing. Someone needs to put an end to this.”

Actually, it was Bahrain that set the wheels in motion for the standardisation of time zones in the region in 1940

According to historical info, there were two time zones commonly in use in Bahrain at the time: Greenwich Mean Time +3.5 and, extraordinarily, GMT +3 & 23 minutes

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Ashleigh Stewart

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Meet Feby Baguisa. Every day, the Filipina mum rises at 3am to cook 150 meals for the needy in Deira

She pays for ingredients out of her own pocket, despite not having a job herself

Most days, 50 people queue before she arrives. She sits in the 38C heat until the food runs out

As word has gotten around, the queue has grown and the food runs out faster.

Feby spends time with those in the line - from India, Pakistan, The Philippines mostly - listening to their stories. Some haven't eaten for 2 days, others are sleeping rough because they can't pay rent

So now, she gives out her phone number, and her apartment number, with the chicken and rice.

"I give them my flat address and tell them if they really have nothing, then to knock on my door. We will do anything for them, if they need a bed and we can give it, we will"

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