DUBAI: In an exclusive interview with Australian media, Alicia Gali talked about being drugged, gang-raped and then imprisoned in Dubai for "illicit sex" in an incident that left many women in the Emirates angered and frustrated over the government's continued lack of deliverance of justice toward women in the country. "This case, I remember it like yesterday and how angry I was," Nouran Shawkat, a 31-year-old marketing manager in Dubai, told Bikyanews.com. "I still get physically repulsed and my body locks up when I really think about what happened to that woman. It is so sad and this is a major problem with the UAE." Gali, then 27, had been hired as a manager of the Starwood Le Meridien Al Aqah Beach Resort, Fujairah, spa and beauty salon in Dubai. According to Gali, following a drink in the employees bar she woke up in her hotel room, naked, with broken ribs and massive bruising. Her drink had been spiked, and she had been the victim of a savage rape whilst drugged. Security guards had been sent to her room following reports of screams, where they found Gali unconscious and three naked men, all hotel employees. Both the hotel and the Australian Embassy failed to offer assistance to Gali. After seeking hospital attention Gali reported the rape to the police, unaware that she herself would be charged with engaging in illicit sex under UAE's sharia law. The law requires four Muslim men to testify that the rape was not consensual sex. The statement Gali provided to police was in Arabic which she did not understand. It was a confession that she had engaged in illicit sex and drunk alcohol, both criminal offences in UAE. In an Islamic court Gali faced her three rapists. She was sentenced to 11 months in prison for sex outside marriage, and a further month for drinking alcohol. The rapists also received prison sentences of the same duration, not for rape but for engaging in illicit sex. Gali spent eight months in a UAE prison which she described as a "nightmare." In filthy, unhygenic conditions, she could hear other prisoners being lashed. She was released early in a pardon, on the same day as her three rapists. For women like Shawkat, it is a stark reminder of the lack of opportunities to fight against the male-dominated world in Dubai and the UAE. She said that "we can be harassed, abused, assaulted and raped and then put in prison because it is our fault. That is what the court and the government tell us." BN
