Charity workers continue to be targeted in the UAE

Although 2017 has been designated by the UAE authorities as the 'Year of Giving,' a number of charity workers continue to be systematically targeted and persecuted for promoting  charitable activities via social media.

The British award winning charity worker Luisa Williams, who had been living in Dubai, was recently prevented from leaving Dubai for a life-saving cancer surgery in the UK.

The UAE authorities have confiscated her passport after convicting her of "illegally promoting a charity fundraiser."

The charges were in connection with a not-for-profit group she ran in Dubai called Volunteers in UAE - which finds people to do anything from clean up a beach to help clothe special needs children.

Along the same line, Scott Richards, a 42-year-old economic development adviser from Adelaide who has both British and Australian citizenship, was locked up  in a Dubai after he posted a link on his Facebook page to an online campaign raising money for refugees in Afghanistan.

The post he shared was a link to a crowd-funding campaign by the Zwan Family Charity to buy tarpaulins, blankets, warm clothes and sleeping bags for the inhabitants of a refugee camp in Afghanistan.

Under laws introduced in 2015 it is illegal to advertise fundraising campaigns in Dubai without written approval from the Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities Department.