Abu Dhabi officials jailed and then deported Jodi Magi back to Australia this week after she was arrested in the United Arab Emirates over a February Facebook post that earned her a conviction for “writing bad words on social media” under the UAE’s Cyber Crime Law.
Magi, a 39-year-old from West Australia, is under fire for posting a photo on Facebook in February of a car without a disability sticker sprawled across two disability spaces
outside her apartment, according to News.com.au. Although her post included no details identifying the car, a police complaint led to her appearance in court last month. The post has since been deleted, but to no avail for Magi’s pardon.
Magi was not jailed until Sunday, when she allegedly signed untranslated Arabic documents while remaining unsure how long
she would be incarcerated, according to the Daily Mail.
“No one's talking to me. No one's telling me what's going on,”
Magi said during a Skype interview with Australia's ABC News before her arrest. “They were about to put me in male lockup and then they turned me away and no one knows what to do with me . . . I'm putting my life in the hands of chaos. I'm terrified.”
She was ultimately released after two days and deported back to Australia.
Magi, a graphic designer who moved to the UAE in 2012, began teaching local women skills in graphic designing and illustrating at Zayed University before her arrest, according to the Daily Mail. Although Magi said that she has pleaded for help from The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, as well as Australian government, she said that she has only received minimal help.
“I'm not sure if it was me being naïve, like I was under the impression that embassies were in countries to help their citizens in times of difficulty, but from my experience it seems that their job here — I'll only speak from my experience in Abu Dhabi — seems to be to generate business and they've got no interest in anything other than that,” Magi told ABC.
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