Student says she feels 'violated' as she's jailed after half-naked strip search
A New York City college student sentenced to prison in the UAE for “assaulting and insulting” an airport guard says she felt “violated” during the ordeal.
Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos, 21, a student at Lehman College in the Bronx, was sentenced on Monday after spending almost three months stuck in Dubai due to a travel ban. Advocacy group Detained in Dubai said she “only intended to transit through Dubai for six hours but she’s been there for months on end and has lost $50,000 in expenses and lawyers costs”.
And Los Santos opened up to the group about her experience of being forced to stay in Dubai since July 14, while trying to travel home from Istanbul to New York. It began when she was asked to take off a waist compressor at airport security which she had to wear due to a recent surgery.
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Female staff removed the compressor in a private booth roughly according to Los Santos, hurting her scars. She says they laughed at her, and when she asked for help in putting the compressor back on, they refused.
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“I was feeling uncomfortable and afraid. I felt really violated,” Los Santos told Detained in Dubai. The ordeal was made more difficult due to the complex nature of the garment, which had “many many pins and you need to stretch the edges and clip small skinny pins together close to the body”.
She says she felt 'violated' by the security guards (Detained in Dubai / SWNS)Los Santos says she was “crying” to her friend for help, which is when the alleged assault took place. As the staff ignored her plea for help with the compressor, she leant past the security guard blocking her and called out for her friend.
“I gently touched her arm to guide her out of the way then desperately started crying to my friend for help,” Los Santos explained. But following this, she was detained for hours as the security guard filed a complaint against her - and couldn’t leave until she signed a form written in Arabic.
Detained in Dubai said: “On top of being humiliated and traumatised by airport staff, Elizabeth has suffered months of being forced to stay in an expensive country, pay expensive lawyers and miss out on her university studies.”
“She is under the most incredible stress which is impacting her physical and mental health, disrupting her entire life and scarring her long term,” they continued. “This is simply no way to treat visitors. It’s outrageous.”
Los Santos had been traveling home to New York from a vacation with a friend to Istanbul. Due to connect via Paris, they changed the flight so they could transfer to Dubai and visit the city during a 10-hour layover. “We thought it would be a more modern and futuristic city but we were completely wrong,” Los Santos said, according to Detained in Dubai.
When returning to the airport after the security incident, to catch her flight to New York, she was informed of the travel ban against her - and that she would have to stay in the country until her charges were heard in court.
Los Santos stayed in a hotel for weeks before the judge permitted a 2,700 USD payment to let her free - but Dubai prosecutors successfully appealed the ruling and on Monday she was sentenced to a year in prison.
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