cross-posted from: https://fedinsfw.app/c/dubai/p/228751/i-was-beaten-and-tortured-how-a-british-father-and-son-made-a-fortune-in-dubai-then-beca
As the Middle East is drawn into war, expats and influencers are under pressure to only share the positive side of the UAE. In reality many are at risk of being put behind bars, and often find the UK government has little interest in helping them get out
In case someone thinks the UAE are good guys, well, they support RSF (former Janjaweed) in Sudan. They try to conceal it well.
I’m sorry, am I supposed to sympathize with these despicable people?
If anything about that story is sad, it’s that he escaped.
Frankly, I would be shocked if at minimum of 95% of the “UK expats” who moved to Dubai to “make their fortune”, don’t deserve torture.
Evil people, doing evil things, in an evil place, and I should feel what for them now? Sympathy? Get fucked.
It is good to tell stories like this, for the public good, but I refuse to sympathize.
He chose to “make a fortune” in a famously and obviously through-and-through corrupt dictatorship known for figuratively grinding migrant labour to bonemeal to pave their roads. Literally chopping up journalists. Murdering villagers for a fake greenwashing project.
He put on tall boots and waded into this pool of blood to “make a fortune”. Smiling at people stabbing each other in the back, he brought his son along to grab soggy fistfulls of blood money. And he just… stayed there until his luck inevitably ran out.
Exactly. Its baffling that they are baffled that the UK government didn’t have any interest in helping them out. I bet they didn’t pay any tax to the UK from that fortune they made but still expect to be bailed out of troubles.
I didn’t have any sympathy for even the tourists visiting those places, when the war started. There was a bunch of Finnish tourists complaining how much the evacuation flights cost. I would like to tell them to go ski into a swamp. If you are stupid enough to go to a volatile region with human rights abuses, you should be paying a price. Too long have people gotten away with that. I enjoy all the consequences that are coming to them. Fuck all of them.
Very well put
Exactly. A little foresight and if only one could have known…
Murdering villagers for a fake greenwashing project.
Literally chopping up journalists
I’m trying to find details of where the UAE did these, do you have a link? Or it could be that you are referring to Saudi Arabia as that’s the only results I get for these.
The two countries are deeply economically tied, are political allies, share much of the power structure. I don’t think it makes sense to separate them in this context of morality, corruption level, or personal risk.
But it was an unconscious simplification that may not apply to others judgements. Apologies for the confusing inaccuracy.
You are being downvoted for being 100% correct. 🤣 🤣 🤣
Accuracy isn’t valued as much as cheering for the right team. The UAE are bad guys, so any comment disparaging them is good, and any comment “defending” them, even to ask “Wasn’t that the Saudis?”, is bad.
The same mentality gets you downvoted if you don’t like Iran sponsoring terrorists (“The US are the real terrorists”) or if you thought killing Israeli civilians at a concert was uncool (“They’re occupying that land, so they deserve whatever they get”).
And so you too are downvoted for writing the truth.
Of course it’s not everybody, but there’s a lot of it. I can’t even say the example with Iranian terrorists is hyperbole, because although most would obviously not support terrorists, I have seen things quite similar to it occur here.
An example could be the case where Iran would bomb a 100% civilian data center was generally celebrated here. Not that I was one bit better, because honestly I don’t think that data center has any value to the people. But in principle it remains wrong, but on the other hand USA deserves to be taught a lesson.
Clearly there’s a difference between an opinion and facts. And although my opinion may not always align with higher ideals, because you may need to break some eggs to make an omelet, but our opinions should at least be based on the truth. And the truth is it was NOT UAE that tortured and killed a journalist, it was Saudi Arabia, and nobody should be downvoted for posting facts IMO.
Trump acknowledged and dismissed it when the Saudi ruler visited in 2025 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/18/trump-bin-salman-visit-jamal-khashoggi?hl=en-GB
His body was dismembered and disposed of in some way that was never publicly revealed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khashoggi.
A Saudi citizen who refused government orders to give up his home to make way for a new mega-project was killed by security forces, according to Saudi activists.
“The Saudi government has no right to uproot our people from their lands and homes for their projects that don’t benefit the region or the residents,” said Abutayah.
Abutayah alleged she has received death threats from Saudi agents because of her opposition to the government.
The Red Sea development, known as NEOM, is a mega-project envisioned by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in Tabuk province.
EXACTLY as lazynooblet wrote, it was a Saudi incident not Dubai.
Not that I would expect better from Dubai, but you can’t paint another country’s action on Dubai. That simply doesn’t make any sense.Okay but the article is about UAE, or is this “Middle East” in general.
Commenter probably figures “they’re all the same.”
No doubt you’ll tell me this is biased, but you make your own judgements.
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2026/country-chapters/united-arab-emirates?hl=en-GB
According to Anssaf Ali Mayo, a Yemeni lawmaker, Abraham Golan was hired as a mercenary to kill him back in 2015. He said it was part of a larger effort by the UAE to eliminate people who opposed them politically
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67945137?amp%3Bat_campaign=KARANGA
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2026/country-chapters/united-arab-emirates?hl=en-GB
That list doesn’t include murdering and dismembering journalists or destroying homes for some mega project. Is this comment thread misinformation or just confused?
Missed a link, sorry!
I don’t know how your links are related to my question. Yes UAE have done bad stuff, no one is saying otherwise, but the parent commenter said some specific things which I now believe to be in error.
“Expats”
Immigrants are brown people 🙃
Huh, eye opener for me at least. I thought they would be good to the westerners. We all know south Asian and Asians are treated like dirt.
It looks like it’s financial takeover followed by prison for the white folks. While it’s slavery for the brown folks.
“If you live with apes man it’s hard to be clean”
Who would have though Manson was a prophet besides a woman abuser huh?
