Christopher Renehan, a 38-year-old Irish national and building contractor, is looking at at least five more years in Dubai’s Central Prison and he has had enough. Seven months into his jail term, he declared a hunger strike last week and has since been joined by others serving time of as much as 20 years, all for the same offense.
The crime that’s landed them in jail for such lengthy sentences isn’t murder or grand larceny – it’s for writing bounced checks, which in Dubai is a criminal offense that can get you as much as three years for each conviction.
Renehan was the managing partner of Sire Contracting before he was jailed for bouncing checks. He says the checks weren’t covered because a client was late in paying him. The hunger strike “was his final option as he was getting no joy through the courts,” his father, Michael Renehan, was quoted as telling media in Dublin.
When Dubai was booming and the money was easy, the draconian laws on check bouncing were largely brushed off. But when the property market hit a wall at the end of 2008, bringing the rest of the economy down with it, unpaid bills suddenly became a big issue for everyone from the state-owned Dubai World conglomerate to people keeping up with the rent on their apartment.
The problem has been exacerbated by the heavy use of post-dated checks, instead of credit cards, to cover future payments. That creates a situation where people are vulnerable to changing circumstances; a clerical error at the bank or even a check being rejected because of a poor signature match. It could end in a prison term or turn them into an international fugitive. Legal recourse is difficult.
“You have incredibly rapid economic development without the regulatory infrastructure catching up,” said Christopher Davidson, an expert of the Gulf political and economic development at Britain’s Durham University. “In many ways this is an aspect of a bigger problem — a forward -thinking economy with a traditional monarchy underneath it.”
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