THE DEPARTMENT of Foreign Affairs has said it is in ongoing contact with an Irish citizen who has been detained in Dubai for almost two weeks.
The woman’s daughter, a student in Dublin, asked yesterday that the family not be identified because of fears for their safety.
She said her mother was detained in Dubai on February 28th, due to an Interpol alert for an alleged forgery in Egypt.
Her mother, a Christian Coptic, left Egypt with her children more than 10 years ago because her ex-husband had converted to Islam and had issued court proceedings to seek custody of their children. She feared he would be automatically granted custody because Islam, she says, is the favoured religion under Egyptian law.
She sought and won asylum here and the family members became Irish citizens in 2005.
In order to leave Egypt without her husband’s permission, she stated that her husband was dead. It appears that she is now being detained in a Dubai police station for this action.
Her daughter has appealed for help from the Irish Government and from members of the European Parliament and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
She said she did not understand why the Dubai authorities had been allowed to detain her mother for so long because there had been no warrant for her arrest or deportation.
“I have every hope that she can come back,” she said. “We hear every day in the news of how some aid workers are being brought from worse situations than this.”
She said her mother’s actions in saying her husband was dead was a means to an end and was done to protect her daughters.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said it was aware of the case and was in contact with the woman, and with her family in Ireland.
