A Nigerian lady identified as Dinchi Lar has been allegedly sentenced to a one-year jail term by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government over a social media post.
The lady had in a post she shared earlier this year via her Twitter handle @Dunchichi narrated how she was illegally detained alongside other Nigerians for hours at Dubai international airport despite possessing valid visas.
The Twitter post dated August 31, 2022 reads: “I’m at Dubai international airport and myself and some tiger Nigerians with valid Visas are being held in a room hours after arriving with no explanation and no information on what we can do. Please help me. There’s more than 20 of us.”
While sharing the recent developments on the incident, a Twitter user @jerrydoubles who claimed to be a family member of Dinchi in a series of tweets on Saturday said the lady has been sentenced to a one-year jail term in Dubai over an offence relating to her earlier post.
“It is sad and regrettably heartrending to tell you all that @dunchichi was sentenced on 12th Oct 22, to 1yr in jail in Dubai. Her family are devastated and Nigeria didn’t save her.
“Her sentence came from the backdrop that she got a family visa to travel. But in fact, she was there with her sister. It got messy & complicated, she was released on arrival after being detained for several hours, only to be sentenced when she was returning to Nigeria.
“They are capitalising on the fact that she made a video and then posted them on her Twitter timeline to narrate the ordeal. They said it’s a cybercrime in their country. She went ahead to delete it. Still, that didn’t soften them. Now she is jailed #justicefordinci.”
The said family member who is demanding justice for the lady further disclosed that the family is planning to stage a protest over the sentence at the Dubai consulate in Abuja.
“We the family are planning a protest at the Dubai consulate in Abuja. If you stay in Abuja or know someone who does and would love to join us, kindly share this with them. Please retweet this.” @jerrydoubles added.
This development is coming barely two days after The United Arab Emirates government slammed a visa ban on Nigerians seeking to visit Dubai without provision of refund for rejected applications.
