No sexting allowed in the friendly skies

Reuters brings us this update on travel news…

(Reuters) – Two Emirates airlines cabin crew have been ordered jailed for three months in Dubai over sexually explicit text messages, the latest in a string of indecency cases against foreigners, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

The pair, an Indian flight attendant and her cabin services supervisor, were convicted of “coercion to commit sin” over the messages and initially sentenced to six months in jail, The National newspaper said on its website, citing court documents.

The sentence was reduced on appeal last week to three months and deportation orders against the pair were lifted, it added. It did not reveal the content of the messages.

Dubai’s foreign population has expanded rapidly in recent years as expatriates flocked to the Gulf Arab trade and tourism hub for its tax-free earnings and year-round sunshine.

The changes have challenged the Emirati population, which is now vastly outnumbered by foreigners, raising concern that their emirate’s rapid pace of growth is a threat to their social and religious identity in what remains a deeply conservative region.

An Emirates spokeswoman declined to comment on the case as it was still ongoing.

The paper said the case emerged after the flight attendant’s husband filed a lawsuit against his wife a year ago accusing her of being in an illicit relationship with her supervisor. It said the couple had been embroiled in a divorce battle since 2007.

The case is the latest decency case against foreigners accused of not respecting local mores.

In a separate case, a British pair caught kissing in public in Dubai is appealing a month-long jail sentence handed down after an Emirati mother complained her child had seen their indiscretion.

The pair, a British man living in Dubai and a female friend, were arrested in November on accusations of kissing and touching each other intimately in public and consuming alcohol, their lawyer said. They were ordered jailed for a month.

In a high-profile case in 2008, a British couple narrowly escaped jail after a court found them guilty of engaging in drunken sexual activity out of wedlock, and for doing so in public on a beach in the emirate.

They were sentenced to three months in prison followed by deportation, but had their jail terms overturned on appeal.

In a separate case this year, a British couple who shared a hotel room managed to escape trial in Dubai for having sex out of wedlock by producing a marriage certificate.

Dallas cop fired for sexting

This comes to us from the Dallas Morning News and Injusticeeverywhere.com

Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle fired a four-year veteran on Thursday after an eight-month internal investigation found among other things that he sent nude photos of himself to a high school student during school hours, kept several people’s ID cards, and failed to give copies of tickets to several violators who were later wanted for arrest because they didn’t pay the tickets.

Bryan Crews, 30, can appeal his firing.

Crews could not be reached for comment, but in his internal affairs statement, he questioned the fairness of the investigation, which was an unusual one for the department because it involved sexually explicit images that the officer saved on his personal cell phone.

“I do not deny all of the allegations, but question the integrity of the investigation, and how the evidence was obtained,” he wrote. “I am not saying that my behavior was OK.”

The internal affairs investigation started in late February after his wife gave the authorities his private cell phone memory card, ticket books and other evidence. Crews’ wife told officials that she believed some of the sexually explicit images to be child pornography, but the investigation found no evidence that the images were of minors.