In recent days, I have been making some comments on Twitter about UAE-Dubai's meddling in my matters outside the UAE. Since I don't live in the Emirates, I do not accept their authority over me. It doesn't matter whether it is cash-starved Dubai or oil-surplus Abu Dhabi that believes in dictating to citizens of other nations how they should live their lives, what careers they should pursue, what opinions they can have and with whom they can have relationships.
Let UAE-Dubai authorities deny that they didn't try to extend their illegitimate authority overseas.
As a journalist based in India, I find it extremely worrisome that authorities anywhere would use underhand tricks to control my views or curtail my movements.
In March 2011, I quit my job as an editor at Yahoo! in Dubai after things became too difficult there and the system of checks and balances at this United States corporation failed to provide a healthy working environment for me. On different occasions I had raised my concerns with senior management about this. Yahoo! Middle East operates out of a so-called free zone where the pincers of dictatorial control are as strong as anywhere else.
It is important that I talk about these issues publicly. Journalists must be able to operate without being subjected to bullying, intimidation and unscrupulous control methods.
Inside the UAE, you can't say a critical word about the powers that be. But, yes, public criticism is allowed and reported by the local media in full honesty if the object of criticism is, for example, a cat, an ATM, a sand dune, a beach pebble, a low-paid worker... Ok, you get the picture.
UAE-Dubai panics at the mere mention of the P word (Politics). Is it on a mission to depoliticize the world and spread its fake ways of life? Does it think it can manipulate anything and anyone using money and PR?
UAE-Dubai's megalomanic audacity knows no bounds.
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