Jul 24, 2023

Dubai Police offer new justification for Tierra Allen arrest

Following public outcry and intense media scrutiny over the detention of social media influencer Tierra Allen, the Dubai police have revised their explanation for the American’s arrest and continued travel ban; bizarrely claiming that Allen “slandered and defamed” staff at the rental car company. This comes after international press reports berated the emirate’s police for charging Allen simply with “yelling”, which had been the original explanation for her detention.

Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, who has taken up Allen’s case, dismisses Dubai’s new official rationale, “Tierra was arrested, and has been prevented from coming home since April, on the basis of raising her voice in public. That charge did not change until her case became known to the media, at which point, Dubai authorities were confronted with the absurdity of the charge. Instead of dropping the case and expediting Tierra’s return to the US, the authorities have concocted a new, but equally absurd, justification for her detention; namely that she slandered the rental car company owner who was refusing to return her belongings. Slandered him to whom? To himself, apparently. The police are alleging that Tierra defamed the man literally to his own ego. Not to passers-by, not to customers, not online; to the man himself. Obviously, this is nothing more than a desperate attempt by the Dubai police to double-down rather than admit their error; which, unfortunately, is frequently their initial response when called out for misconduct, wrongful arrests, and police bias.

“Tierra was not in the wrong in this scenario, she was being extorted and intimidated in a foreign country, and has been targeted by someone who knew how to game the system to his advantage. The authorities in Dubai would be wise to consider how Tierra’s ordeal is impacting the emirate’s image in the United States and across the Internet. Not only are people outraged by what happened to Tierra, but the response of the Dubai police now that her case is known, is angering them even more. Whenever we have seen reluctance on the part of UAE authorities to address wrongdoing by police, it typically indicates that vested interests are involved whose reputations or careers would suffer if corrective action is taken. But Dubai has a far greater vested interest in not being viewed by Americans as corrupt, abusive, and racist. The longer they detain Tierra over this contrivance of a case, the worse Dubai’s image will suffer. She has been separated from her family, deprived the ability to work, and been kept nearly 3 months under the threat of lengthy imprisonment; all because she did not capitulate to an opportunistic extortion attempt by a predatory shop owner who saw her as a vulnerable foreigner carrying US Dollars.

“Dubai authorities need to resolve this issue with appropriate urgency, and let Tierra finally come home.”