Betty Dobbs fears she won't make it home to the States with her 55 year old son, military veteran, Robert Dobbs.
26 October 2023, Dubai:
The 80 year old mother of US army veteran Robert Dobbs, has called on a British school to remove a travel ban forcing her son to remain in Dubai. The PTSD sufferer has been arrested almost thirty times over a claim by a Sharjah based English school that he owed them around US$100,000.
During the pandemic, they managed to secure a judgement in absentia against Dobbs. He wasn’t informed of proceedings and by the time he found out, it was too late to file an appeal. Dobbs says he has ample evidence to exonerate him but has never had the opportunity to present it before a court. “I feel like a hamster on a wheel”, he told Business Insider last month. “The case was retaliatory and unfounded”.
The 55 year old has desperately appealed to the US Embassy to help lift the travel ban. He does not have the means to pay his former employer the $100k and his employment visa has been cancelled. “The UAE desperately needs to reform laws so expats are not held in the country with no right to work to even pay off a debt if it genuinely exists”, urged Radha Stirling, founder of Detained in Dubai. “Claimants have the ability to enforce their judgements internationally. It is inhumane to keep people in the country indefinitely”.
Lecturer David Oliver, from Florida, was almost made homeless after a bank issued a travel ban against him. The US Embassy persuaded the bank to lift the travel ban and he was able to finally go home but sadly, passed away just a year later due to health issues that were left undiagnosed during his detention in the UAE. Stirling says “this has to stop”.
Dobbs has been taking care of his elderly mother in Dubai but they are both longing to be reunited with his wife and children. She fears she (and he) will never see them again. “It would be an absolute tragedy if he or his mother, Betty, died while trapped in Dubai”, warned Stirling.
British former Grenadier Guard Robin Berlyn was also trapped in Dubai over his employer’s financial issues. He was scapegoated by them. After eventually losing hope he would ever leave Dubai, he tried to flee the country but tragically died en route.
“Dubai’s criminalisation of civil matters is an egregious violation of international laws and principles”, asserts Stirling. Fact Sheet No. 26 of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention states, “[...] there are deprivations of liberty which are per se prohibited, such [as] imprisonment for debt". The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights stipulates, in Article 11, “No one shall be imprisoned merely on the ground of inability to fulfil a contractual obligation.”
Dobbs has been growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of diplomatic support. “It really doesn’t take much to highlight the injustice of a judgement in absentia to UAE authorities”. Senator Baldwin has been in touch with the State Department but Dobbs feels things have stagnated. Dobbs has been “stuck in an open air prison for 5 years. I am a veteran with PTSD as well. I'm at the end of my life basically.”
Stirling has called on the US Embassy to help him. “Robert has no legal avenue to appeal or to show evidence to the court that he does not owe the money. He was not even told there was a court date and was unable to defend himself. US diplomats must work with UAE authorities to resolve this miscarriage of justice.”
Stirling has also approached the school to ask they remove the travel ban against Dobbs.
“The Dubai legal system, particularly respecting debts, needs urgent reform for the safety of visitors. If Dubai hopes to achieve its goal of being a major tourist and business hub for Westerners, it needs to stop issuing criminal punishments to civil disputes.”