British engineer faces jail in Abu Dhabi for 'insulting Islam'
British engineer works at the parks and recreation section of Abu Dhabi Municipality, and is appealing against a one-month prison sentence imposed by the Court of Misdemeanours.
The slow completion of a project at a Mosque in Abu Dhabi caused the British engineer to make the statement that has landed him in court and facing jail.
He explained to the judge that he did not mean to insult the mosque as a religious place and that he respected Islam and the UAE.
Engineer told the court he lost his temper during a meeting because the project was progressing slowly.
I said it out of concern for the project because I wanted it to be ready as soon as possible,' he said.
The conservative UAE has a history of cracking down on the many foreigners who live there for indecent or 'un-Islamic' behaviour.
In 2010, a British woman who made a rape complaint in Dubai was arrested for having illegal sex with her fiance.
The woman, a 23-year-old from London, said she was raped by a waiter in a luxury hotel after celebrating her engagement to her 44-year-old boyfriend, also from London.
But when she reported the alleged rape to police in the Middle Eastern state she and her boyfriend were arrested for having sex outside marriage and illegal drinking outside licensed premises.
Later that year, another British woman was arrested for wearing a bikini at a Dubai mall.
The woman, a holidaymaker, was charged with indecency in Dubai after walking through the world's largest shopping centre in a bikini.
The woman was buying clothes and gifts in the Dubai Mall, fully dressed but in a low-cut top, when she was accosted by an Arabic woman and criticised for wearing 'revealing clothing'.
The mall's security team then intervened and called the police, who arrested the British holidaymaker.
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