Robe rage: UAE tells travellers to shun Arab clothes after gun-toting Ohio police swarm tourist mistaken for terrorist
The United Arab Emirates has warned its citizens against wearing traditional Arab clothing while travelling in the West, after an innocent medical tourist was swarmed by Ohio police with rifles levelled at him as he stood in white robes outside a hotel.
UAE officials said Sunday that travellers from the Arab country should “refrain from wearing the national dress” in public places while visiting the West “to ensure their safety” and said that women should abide by bans on face veils in European countries, according to news reports from Dubai.
The tourist, stroke victim Ahmed al-Menhali, was detained at gunpoint last Wednesday in Avon, Ohio, after a suspicious hotel clerk alerted relatives told relatives about the man, who called 911.
Menhali, a 41-year-old businessman, was in the United States for medical treatment and tried to book a hotel in the Cleveland suburb. He was wearing a flowing white headscarf and a full-length white robe at the time. Screaming police swarmed him, pinned him to the ground with a knee to his neck and handcuffed him outside the hotel entrance while he was speaking on his phone in Arabic.
He later told the broadcaster Al Jazeera that the clerk heard him speaking the foreign language and apparently concluded he was “pledging my allegiance to ISIS,” referring to the Islamic State.
“The UAE cares for the safety of its citizens and, therefore, demands clarifications about this incident,” it said in a statement carried by WAM state news agency.