DUBAI, 9 November 2007 — The Dubai Appeals Court yesterday reversed a lower court’s decision and found two journalists not guilty of libeling a woman.
In September this year, the Dubai Court of Misdemeanor had sentenced the two journalists to two months in jail. A few days after the sentence, Sheikh Mohammad ibn Rashid Al-Maktoum, vice-president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, issued instructions that journalists in the country will not be jailed for doing their work.
Sheikh Mohammad said that there are other measures that may be taken against journalists who break the press and publication law, but not jail.
The two journalists from the local English Daily, Khaleej Times, had denied defaming the woman.
They are the paper’s then Managing Editor S.K. Gangadharan, an Indian, and Egyptian senior reporter Muhsin Rashed. The woman, an Iranian national, had filed a case against them claiming that they had made a mockery of her in an article published on June 28, 2006.
In the article, the journalists had written about a ruling of the Court of Cassation against the woman’s husband. The woman had filed a complaint against her husband after he had issued her with a check of Dh83,000 that bounced when she went to cash it.
During the court proceedings the husband said that the woman had tricked him into signing the check with her constant nagging.
He claimed that she had refused to let him out of the house until he signed the check. Even though he told her that there was no cash in his account the woman went ahead and cashed it.
She then filed a complaint against him with the police. As a result of the complaint the husband was given a three-month suspended jail term.
Mohammad Yousuf, Chairman of UAE Journalists Association, hailed the court’s decision saying that it is a victory for UAE justice.
