All I can say is...it's not a "bad" place if:
1) you are working as a direct hire for any of the govt companies (Adnoc, Etisalat, etc.).
2) if not, you are contracted directly by those companies
3) if you are on contract and your visa's sponsor is good (won't take your passport on arrival, won't create issues when you need to leave, etc.)
4) If you keep your head down basically - go to work, come home, have fun - Don't get involved in politics, using encrypted chatting applications, talking about human rights or anything along those lines.
oh and there's definitely a lot of brain washing going on. Almost everyone claims that it's the best place to be, discrimination ain't a thing (yes it is), everyone's fair (nope) and so on...
By "have fun", I meant - go around, visit places, hang out with friends, shop etc. While I am personally not aware of premarital sex, alcohol consumption is fine (as long as you have a licence, and do it indoors)
kissing in public, adultery, blasphemy, homosexual sex, criticizing rulers - yep, all these are big no-nos.
Your employer stealing your passport is something that generally only happens in a hellhole?
Furthermore, this issue generally plagues the contractor companies (those that provide workers to bigger govt companies - who don't really care and use contractors to get around this in the first place)
Quite a lot of private companies do the same as well.
Very recently (just 6 months back), a friend of mine, got an offer from an import/export company in UAE. They had a few interviews over the phone and agreed upon the everything (including salary, accommodations and so on..)
Once my friend (a Canadian citzien) landed in UAE, the company took his passport and then demanded that he sign a different contract (reduced salary, longer period, etc.) and refused to hand over his password till he signed it. He had to threaten to visit the Embassy, for them to hand it back to him. However, if he was a citizen of some 3rd world country like India, Pakistan or anywhere from Asia, or even some European countries - he'd not have a choice but to sign the new contract.
Furthermore, when he tried to leave - as he was no longer interested in working for the company, they refused to pay for his flight back as well.
I think OPs point is that while they might have treated OP like gold, he couldn't conscious taking part in the horrifying things they do to their own people, to say nothing of migrant workers (taking passports as a means of control).
But I do remember them having an outright ban on BBM (for about 3 days) till Blackberry had a local datacenter (and I believe provided the govt access to the messages - I am not sure about the details in parenthesis).
I wonder if the author is afraid of retribution (e.g. abduction, “disappearance”).
<pre> should be used for preformatted code blocks or similar.
When you're quoting something, the appropriate markup is a <blockuquote> tag pair.
Most sane CSS should render that reasonably, preferably simply by indenting the content.
Also of note is that dubai is ~85% immigrants, which i think it the object of their surveillance.
The UAE's bizarre, political trial of 94 activists
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/06/uae-tri...
They seem to have everyone pretty cowed. They treat the guest workers like dirt, but don't seem to be concerned about a slave revolt.
Most top intelligence officials from Western countries retire to form "security analysis and consulting" firms.
Rudy Giuliani has such a firm. http://www.giulianisecurity.com/index.php/us/
His former Police Chief has one. http://www.thekerikgroup.com/
Most former U.S. Secretaries of Homeland Security have one (each). Look up https://chertoffgroup.com/team.php
Ever wondered what exactly they do? They help wealthy dictators and despots in other countries monitor their populations, and crush dissent.
But seriously, this is an absolutely despicable act on the part of the UAE. And that fact that Tor's security has come into question of late just makes it worse (not that Tor would help you with this sort of thing).
People have been detained for reasons beyond imagination.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-woman-faces-insult-charge-unit...
http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/general/jailed-and-fined-for-no...
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/561528/British-plane-spo...
