More Dubai Injustice: Man who uploaded government official assault video arrested

The Dubai Police have arrested the person who filmed a senior government official assaulting a van driver after a minor accident and uploaded the video which went viral on YouTube.

Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Dubai Police Major-General Khamis Mattar Al Mazeina said on Wednesday that the man was arrested after the son and other family members of the government employee involved in the incident lodged a complaint at the Qusais police station.

Maj-Gen Al Mazeina said that this person could have contacted the police and given them the video recording instead of publishing it.

He said that the Dubai Police were committed to taking legal action against people who commited mistakes or crimes. 

The man who took the video confessed that he uploaded it on YouTube after he distributed the footage to a number of his friends.

Maj-Gen Al Mazeina commented that this type of footage might be exploited in a wrong way by certain authorities or people. 

It is worthy to mention that a number of people, through various media forums, debated whether people have the right to photograph accidents or certain incidents which can bring wrongdoers to justice and used as evidence by authorities.

In this regard, Maj-Gen Al Mazeina said the police were examining whether there was a possibility of allowing people to photograph traffic accidents and sending the footage to the police using the 3G network.

He warned members of the public from publishing such footage on social networking sites or sharing it with friends and relatives as it would, more often than not, included the car number plates.

Under the UAE’s cybercrime laws, recording videos in public without the permission of those being filmed is illegal and constitutes defamation, so people should not involve themselves in this act in order to avoid legal action against them.

The assault was viewed by tens of thousands of people shortly after it was posted. It showed the official punching and hitting an Asian minivan driver with his Igal (head dress) following a minor accident in Al Muraqqabat area.

Maj-Gen Al Mazeina earlier said that both parties were summoned for questioning. He stressed that whatever the reason behind the incident, no one had the right to assault others or to take the law into their own hands and he should have rather resorted to the police.