Sunday, March 18, 2007

More murky waters.

A report in 7Days tells us:

A Dubai-based menswear store will hand over 11 air tickets to stranded Indians each time cricketer Sreesanth takes a wicket during the ongoing Cricket World Cup.

The clothing chain Snowhite, announced yesterday that the ‘wicket-ticket’ programme would mainly help men who have completed prison sentences but are still stranded in UAE jails unable to afford to return to their home country.


Well, good on Snowhite for the gesture and let's hope Sreesanth gets a bagfull of wickets.

But surely they've missed the real story here. It's in the last few words:"...who have completed prison sentences but are still stranded in UAE jails unable to afford to return to their home country."

What's going on here? Have they been given deportation as part of their sentence? If so, surely the authorities are responsible for deporting them.

If they haven't been sentenced to deportation, then why aren't they out of jail at the end of their sentence and back in the workforce? Why are they still in there because they "are unable to afford to return to their home country."?

And what's the end-game? If they can't raise the fare home do they stay in jail forever?

You can read the report here.

2 comments:

samay said...

yeah thats pretty much the story...it's usually that some good samaritans aware of such situations get together and collect money for people who cannot pay for their own tickets, so that these people can get back to their own countries...otherwise they're pretty much stranded here...thats as far as i know...

Sex and Dubai said...

Well there's some fabulous PR for the company in question.