UAE Relaxes Law On Fornication And Consumption Of Alcohol

United Arab Emirates (UAE) has relaxed certain laws criminalising fornication and alcohol consumption.

The announcement was made on the state-run WAM news agency and detailed in state-linked newspaper, The National.

Details of the legal reforms are, allowing unmarried couples to cohabit, loosening alcohol restrictions and criminalising “honour killings”.

In the UAE, residents require a liquor licence to purchase, transport or have alcohol in their homes.

But with the development, penalties for alcohol consumption, sales and possession for those above 21 years have been banished; thereby allowing Muslims who have been barred from obtaining licences to drink alcoholic beverages freely.

OnyxNews Nigeria gathered reports by Associated Press that UAE has also permitted “cohabitation of unmarried couples”, often categorised as fornication, which had been a crime in the country.

The government authority announced the eradication of laws protecting “honour crimes” — a custom in which a male relative may evade prosecution for assaulting a woman accused of dishonoring the family.

The punishment for a crime committed to eradicate a woman’s “shame” for promiscuity or disobeying religious and cultural strictures, will now be the same for any other kind of abuse.

The legal reforms come after a historic US-brokered deal to normalise relations between the UAE and Israel.

The new law is also coming as the UAE prepares to host the high-stakes World Expo.

The event, which was postponed owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, seeks to bring many commercial activities and some 25 million visitors to the country.