Freelance journalist handcuffed, passport taken, for writing about moustaches

Reporters Without Borders today called for the immediate return of the passport that was confiscated from freelance journalist V. M. Sathish when he was briefly arrested in Dubai on 13 December for allegedly libelling a jewellery chain by reporting that it ordered its employees to shave off their beards and moustaches. “It is absolutely essential that Sathish should immediately recover his freedom of movement and that the Dubai police should stop harassing him,” the press freedom organisation said. “It is beyond belief that a journalist can be arrested and prosecuted for such a ridiculous reason.” Sathish, who writes for several English-language news media, was summoned by the Dubai prosecutor's office on 13 December, interrogated and detained for several hours over a report in the Khaleej Times daily on 22 August that the Alukkas chain of jewellery stores had told its 400 employees they would henceforth all have to be clean-shaven. The managing director of the chain, Joy Alukkas, reacted to the article by bringing a libel action against Sathish. Sathish told Reporters Without Borders he felt “imprisoned” and that his ability to move about freely in the region was hampering his work as a journalist. “To be treated like this, like a criminal by the Dubai police... they put handcuffs on me and jailed me... just for writing about moustaches,” Sathish exclaimed.