In India, it’s a common thing to crack husband-wife jokes. They were pretty common in SMS time and WhatsApp has only made them more popular. People love to crack jokes on their wives but in UAE the scenario is totally different.
A man in UAE was recently jailed for 60 days and fined Rs 4 lakhs as he called his fiancee “idiot” over a WhatsApp message.
What happened exactly?
A woman in Dubai filed a court case against her to-be-husband as she felt offended by a WhatsApp joke he sent her. In the joke, the man called her habla (which means idiot in Arabic).
While the man said that it was a joke and was meant to be humorous, his fiancee took it as an insult and dragged him to court.
A WhatsApp message or joke can really get you jailed in UAE?
Well, yes! In UAE sending anything to someone on social media which can be offensive is considered a cybercrime. In this case, the recipient found the joke offensive so she had the right to file a case on the man.
Earlier too several such cases have been filed in UAE where the messages were supposed to be a joke but the receiver took offence. The law is so strict that even if you sent a message by mistake, the person can get you penalized. In one of the cases, a man was jailed for sending an explicit video to a woman over WhatsApp by mistake.
Do you think a law like this should be made in India too?