A pre-operative transgender woman and a man, both from Singapore, jailed in the United Arab Emirates for cross-dressing have had their sentences reduced to a fine and deportation, officials say.<\/p>\n
Nur Qistina Fitriah Ibrahim and Muhammad Fadli Bin Abdul Rahman were arrested in Abu Dhabi on 9 August for “wearing women’s clothes in public”.<\/p>\n
A court found them guilty last week and sentenced them to a year in prison.<\/p>\n
But UAE officials now say they will only have to pay $2,720 (\u00a32,110) fines.<\/p>\n
Article 358 of the UAE’s penal code criminalises “indecent attire” as an act of public indecency.<\/p>\n
It also criminalises sodomy, as well as sex outside marriage.<\/p>\n
The transgender tailor who died in Saudi custody<\/p>\n
United Arab Emirates profile<\/p>\n
Ms Ibrahim, 37, and Mr Fadli, a 26-year-old freelance fashion photographer, were stopped by police at Yas Mall in Abu Dhabi as they tried to eat at a food court, the campaign group Detained in Dubai said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Mr Fadli was wearing a white T-shirt, a bow tie and earrings at the time, his brother Muhammad Saiful Bahri Bin Abdul Rahman was quoted as saying by the Associated Press on Thursday.<\/p>\n
It is not clear what Ms Ibrahim was wearing, but her younger sister told the Straits Times that her documents stated her gender as male because she had not undergone reassignment surgery.<\/p>\n
Neither of the Singaporeans was represented by a lawyer in court on 20 August, nor was there anyone from the Singaporean embassy, according to Mr Saiful.<\/p>\n
Singapore’s ministry of foreign affairs said diplomats had held four meetings with them since their arrest, the first taking place on 10 August after the embassy was notified of their case.<\/p>\n
The pair’s families and the Singaporean embassy declined to comment on Monday on the reports that their sentences had been reduced, the Associated Press said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A pre-operative transgender woman and a man, both from Singapore, jailed in the United Arab Emirates for cross-dressing have had their sentences reduced to a fine and deportation, officials say. Nur Qistina Fitriah Ibrahim and Muhammad Fadli Bin Abdul Rahman were arrested in Abu Dhabi on 9 August for “wearing women’s clothes in public”. A court found them guilty last week and sentenced them to a year in prison. But UAE officials now say they will only have to pay $2,720 (£2,110) fines. Article 358 of the UAE’s penal code<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9704"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9706,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9704\/revisions\/9706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}