UAE Government sentence Nigerian woman to one year in jail over Twitter Post

A Nigerian woman, identified as @dunchichi on Twitter, has been reportedly sentenced to a one-year jail term by the United Arab Emirates government for a social media post showing how some Nigerian nationals were illegally detained at Dubai international airport. 

On 31st August, @dunchichi posted on Twitter how she was detained with other Nigerians despite possessing a valid visa.

“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,” she wrote.

But another user, @jerrydoubles, who claimed to be her relative, on Saturday announced that @dunchichi had been sent to jail for an offence relating to her earlier post in Dubai

He said, “It is sad and regrettably heartrending to tell you all that @dunchichi was sentenced on 12th October 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 capitalizing on the fact that she made a video and then posted them on her Twitter timeline to narrate the ordeal. They said it was cybercrime in their country, and she went ahead to delete it. Still, that didn’t soften them. Now she is jailed #justicefordinci.”

He further added that her family planned to protest her conviction at the Dubai consulate office in Abuja.

“If you stay in Abuja or know someone who does and would love to join us,” his tweet added.