British woman faces jail in Dubai for calling ex-husband's new wife a 'horse'

A British woman is facing up to two years prison in Dubai and a $65,000 fine over a Facebook post insulting her ex-husband's new wife.

Laleh Shahravesh, 55, was detained at Dubai airport in March over a 2016 post after she compared her former partner's new Tunisian wife to a horse.

One of Shahravesh's Facebook posts reportedly read: "Damn you. You left me for this horse."

Despite posting the insult while in the UK, Shahravesh has fallen foul of Dubai's draconian online defamation laws. She was arrested while travelling to the emirate with her daughter, Paris, to attend the funeral of ex-husband Pedro Manuel Coreia Dos Santos.

Authorities acted after a complaint filed by Santos' new wife, according to campaign group Detained in Dubai.

"I have spoken with Laleh, her mother, sisters and daughter Paris. Their experience is heartbreaking," Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, was quoted by The Evening Standard as saying.

"Not only has Paris lost her father, but in going to visit him to say her final goodbye, she wound up in a frightening Middle Eastern police station, and is now without her mother."

"Paris is writing a letter to Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai and Prime Minister of the UAE to appeal for her mother’s release."

Santos' widow, meanwhile, has claimed that she suffered a campaign of harrassment from Shahravesh and made the complaint because she was "suffering in silence".

Samah al-Hammadi, 42, also alleges that Shahvaresh harried her ex-husband and his employers with insulting emails.
 
"She has been abusing him, sending emails, even to his boss in the bank, saying I am a b****, that I took him from her, that she doesn't have money. He sent emails asking her to stop. It did not stop," al-Hammadi told the Standard.

Shahravesh is due to face a court in Dubai on 11 April.