For a Bounced Check in Dubai, the Penalty Can Be Years Behind Bars

By ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: September 11, 2009

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — For more than a year, prosecutors have been cracking down on the corruption and kickbacks that thrived during the boom years in this Persian Gulf city-state. Dozens of executives have been arrested and charged in a high-profile effort to show that fraud will no longer be tolerated. Investigators say their cases have uncovered $3.58 billion that was stolen or used as bribe money.

Troubled developments like Waterfront are signs of Dubai’s economic crisis, which has led to unpaid debt.
But alongside the con artists and crooks, a rising number of businesspeople have been sent to jail for going into debt. Bouncing a check is a criminal offense here. That fact has begun raising questions about the fairness of Dubai’s laws, especially among the foreigners who make up about 90 percent of the population.
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The government of Dubai, which is one of seven members of the emirates federation, has not given out numbers of those arrested for debt. But lawyers say the numbers have risen substantially since the global financial crisis hit Dubai last year. There have been so many arrests that lawyers and even the police have begun complaining about the pressure, saying debt should be handled in the civil courts. “Sadly now, as a police force we have been involved in a matter that shouldn’t have been under our mandate,” said Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Dubai’s top police official, earlier this year.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/world/middleeast/12dubai.html?th&emc=th

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But it seems that there aren't any overdraft fees...

back when Euro-Christianity was at the same bickering, intolerant stage that much of Islam is still stuck at.