A satirical YouTube video has landed an American comedian a one-year sentence in a United Arab Emirates (UAE) prison.
Shezanne “Shez” Cassim, who moved to Dubai from Minnesota in 2006, was arrested in April and charged with “endangering national security” under the country’s cybercrimes law.
He’s one of nine people, including one Canadian, charged for posting the spoof video. Eight people including 29-year-old Cassim were given prison sentences, while one person was acquitted.
The Canadian, a Briton and another American were convicted and sentenced in absentia, according to Gulf News.
Cassim and the other foreigners convicted in the case have also been ordered to pay a 10,000 dirham (approximately $2,900 CAD) fine.
It all stems from a video Cassim and his fellow amateur comics posted in 2012 lampooning a group of local youth, known as the Satwa Gs, who have an affinity for hip hop culture and fancy themselves as gangsters.
Al Satwa is a neighbourhood in Dubai known for shopping and coffee shops — hardly the roughest place in the world.
The nearly 20-minute long video, called “Ultimate Combat System: The Deadly Satwa Gs,” profiles the fighting tactics of the Satwa Gs including shoe-throwing techniques and using a mobile phone to call your friends for “backup.”
“We are utterly horrified, and hurt, and outraged by this,” Cassim’s brother, Shervon Cassim, told NBC News following the sentencing on Monday. “We do not see how he could have been found guilty of any kind of crime by posting this video.”
Shervon told CNN earlier this month his brother is “a big fan of sketch comedies.”
“He’s a big fan of SNL, Funny or Die, all those shows, and he and his friends just wanted to make a funny sketch comedy in their spare time,” he said.
Born in Sri Lanka, Cassim worked as a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Dubai since graduating from the University of Minnesota seven years ago.
U.S. comedians, including Funny or Die co-founders Will Farrell and Adam McKay, backed the #FreeShez campaign calling for Cassim to be freed from custody.
“Basically Dubai, if you want to be viewed as an international… destination, don’t put people in jail for making silly videos,” said comedian Adam McKay. “It’s one thing to have a bad sense of humor. It’s another to lock people up because of it.”
According to the #FreeShez campaign website, Cassim wasn’t even told he was under arrest on the night he was asked to report to Dubai Police Headquarters.
“Within 12 hours he had been questioned, fingerprinted and made to sign a statement written in Arabic—which he couldn’t read—and had been denied an attorney,” a statement on the website read.
UAE officials have not said much publicly about the case.
This is reportedly the first time a foreigner has been charged and convicted under UAE’s new cybercrimes decree, which was only enacted in Nov. 2012.
The new decree provides protections against identity theft and fraud, punishes those soliciting or engaging in prostitution, and criminalizes “activities by any person who creates or runs any electronic site to send, transmit, publish or promote who creates pornographic material, gambling activities and any other indecent acts.”
It also includes a section that “criminalizes acts by anyone to insult others or to accuse others of acts which would lead to punishment or contempt by a third party, online or through any other information technology means.”
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