One of many reasons that I will never enter the UAE. There is no rule of law, and so no protection if anyone decides to charge you for anything. I've read of women being raped and then being charged for reporting it which essentially admits sex outside of marriage, or of foreigners who get driven into by a local and then charged as if they were the ones being reckless.
That's not even going into their de facto slavery with foreign construction workers, environmental damage, and sexism.
After some bad experiences I will never visit an Arab country again. They'll have to do something against the sexism, constant heckling and the bad state of law before I even think about going there. Or they can do whatever they want, they don't have to change just for me.
I'm 6 ft 6 and I have a blonde wife who's just a bit smaller. Even though we behaved very polite and dressed like locals it was like we had a big target on our backs and were looked upon with resentment everywhere we went.
I will not mention the countries we visited but it was pretty much the same everywhere.
How about having an international bribery conspiracy pinned on you?
Happened to my pops because he, a German-born Canadian of Turkish and German descent, refused to pay bribes. I was actually conceived while he was out there in Saudi Arabia with my mom and they came back to Canada to have me but not before a giant RCMP investigation kicked off that ended up in Canadian parliament because courts didn't have jurisdiction at that time.
The only reason he didn't go to jail was ONE GUY, a young Lebanese dude with a family and a nascent green card to America had the balls to go against everyone else in the conspiracy. He freely testified that he was the one that actually carried the cash between the parties involved—implicating himself and risking his family's future—and he knew just who was guilty and who wasn't and the one guy who wasn't in on it was my father.
Later, he met with some American officials and they said something along the lines of "don't worry about your green card, we want more Americans like you" to the Lebanese dude.
Later my parents made him and his wife my godparents and we talk on the phone even to this day.
But think about it. Dozens of well-off people conspired to pin prison time on some random person from Canada who wouldn't hurt a soul.
I went to Egypt a few months ago and was met with incredibly warm people, with perhaps even an excess of hospitality. Yes, you do get charged extra for being a tourist at the tourist spots. But that's only a small part of the country. That said, I am Indian and was met as an Egyptian most of the time (people would start speaking to me in Arabic 70% of the time), so I had the benefit of fitting in well. The delicious food, the serene Nile, the magnificent range of art, the tea shops, and the people - the country is worth a visit even if you aren't into ancient Egyptian stuff. Travel is always a risk, so there's that.
The last time I visited Dahab (a very simple yet beautiful place in Sinai, not sure if you know it or not), I saw an Arab man, from his accent it was clear he is not an Egyptian, maybe he is a Saudi or Kuwaiti, he was having a discussion with the Hotel's reception about being charged more just because he is not an Egyptian. This is just something stupid they do to get more money. I am sorry that you had to pay more for the same service.
I've heard wonderful things about Dahab! I'd love to visit if I get to go back to Egypt.
I didn't mind the overcharging too much when it was obvious. Like it was funny to me and the taxi driver that he was charging too much, and we had a laugh about it. Coming from the USA, the flight cost far dominated any expenses from when I was in Egypt. The one time it did feel bad was when the tour guide I hired, who seemed to be on my side, let me be overcharged by someone he had a prior arrangement with. But alas he was so knowledgable.
I realize all this is only a small part of Egypt and it's not fair to judge a whole country by a few bad apples.
One of my new Egyptian friends wanted me to try so many types of food that he sent me home with two extra bags of stuff. That's excessive hospitality :)
if it's ok for employers to pay you less for the same job because you live in egypt, it's ok for a shop to charge you more because you don't live in egypt
I'm guessing you're also a male, since I've literally never heard a good story about a female traveler without a male companion in Egypt or the Maghreb in general.
Well, to my surprise I have indeed met some western women who enjoyed hitchhiking through morocco alone (or together with a female friend). But they knew what to expect and were very strong women, who did not flinch by sexism and aggressive avances and could put them down.
They might have been lucky, though. A moroccan women who also hitchhiked a lot just stated, the closer to mauretania, the more rape attempts.
I wouldn't exactly call needing to steel yourself against rampant sexism and aggressive sexual advances a "good story". I guess if they enjoyed themselves and weren't raped and murdered, that is all that matters.
That is so good to hear! I've always wanted to go to Egypt, but it almost seems a bit scary since I'm so unfamiliar with that part of the world aside from all of the negative bits you hear on the news, e.g. civil unrest.
As someone from an arab country i can say, this is true, sexual harassment is rampant and people see women more or less like an object than a human being.
I must say I visited Jordan with my wife in 2020, right before the pandemic and I had a wonderful experience. No heckling, we felt safe all the time, people didn't rip us off, and when looked at we felt it was more curiosity than anything else.
We loved it. I'm learning arabic on Duolingo now because I got curious about the script.
I'll echo that, having had exactly the same experience in 2018. We stand out almost everywhere - I'm Caucasian with a rugby player's build, and my partner is tall and very obviously East Asian. Yet there was no heckling, no scams, no soliciting for bribes, at most there was friendly interest when interacting with locals. I fully expected to need grifter repellent from time to time, and but it was not so. So I'll also pipe up for Jordan.
I know it's not a perfect country, but to us it felt safe, in the way that some other nations don't, and we weren't confining ourselves to the usual tourist spots of Amman, Petra, and Wadi Rum, but also wandering further afield besides. Yet I've felt more at risk in parts of Europe, Russia, and China.
I just checked some global indexes and was not surprised to find that Jordan ranks #1 for literacy and medicine in the region, despite being one of the nations without oil revenue. In my experience it carried itself with the patina of both storied history and modern education.
Yes, it was great. We were free to roam around inside and saw most of it, up to the monastery, and then up to another viewpoint ("the best view in the world"). I think we walked about 20km that day. It was worth it.
We bought tickets for the Petra by night show, and while it was good, we felt it was a bit expensive for what it was.
The martian landscapes of Wadi Rum were equally as good.
I was quite saddened by the number of people who go to petra and only factor in a few hours, never going much further than the treasury. I appreciate not everyone has a lot of time in their itinerary, but that seems to be one part you should make the time for.
We had two full days there and it was such an extraordinary site to look around.
And I'm pretty sure there were about 5 "Best view in the world" :) Although all of them could make a pretty good claim to the title, it's a stunning area.
They're working on it. The situation has improved. There's a long way to go, but there's progress. Give it a 100 more years.
> dressed like locals
Please don't do that. It just looks weird when foreigners do it. Just wear what you would normally wear in your western country. (Although, a bikini is probably not a good idea).
> were looked upon with resentment everywhere we went.
I've lived in USA for a while. Although people were generally very friendly, I have definitely been looked at with resentment from America for no good reason.
The oil kings realised long ago they'll run out of oil eventually.
So they've diversified into other businesses. It's now a hub of business activities that have nothing to do with oil.
Global warming — yes that's a problem, but Dubai won't be the only place affected by it.
War — what makes you think there'll be a war? Whatever it is, it's just speculation at this point. As long as a certain war-o-phile country doesn't decide to flatten it.
Physically it's like when I fly over Arizona and Las Vegas. Those are preposterous settlements. Dubai is that to the nth degree.
Dubai is so recently and explosively settled, you may not understand what I mean by decay. Cities evolve, change, decay, and hopefully renew. Dubai is a product of aggressive investment/subsidy by the royalty, directly or not. Parts of the city will decline. Aspects of the city will decline. Decay is inevitable, it's entropy. Cities are like life: they must actively renew themselves or they fade.
Dubai also is basically a modern slave labor state. How long will that persist? It seems untenable in the long term. Either the slave labor will leave or dry up, or rebel.
Dubai is attached to the oil age. It's excesses, abuses, etc are forgiven by the world elite because of the flow of oil money. That is going to end. Demand is going to PLUMMET worldwide as EVs displace first consumer transport, then local goods delivery, then long haul ground transport. Somewhere in the middle of "consumer transport" and "local goods delivery" the demand will drop by such a large and extended amount that the price won't really be profitable anymore.
Diversification is obviously the aim, and while this isn't authoritative, I've seen this in action with the bizarre satellite/branch universities Saudi Arabia paid various western universities to set up. Just because you throw money at it doesn't mean it sticks. Those universities couldn't find the people that would do the work of academia beyond the usual bullshit of rubber stamp diplomas that universities currently make sausage with.
The sand will consume it. Dubai has to actively keep sand dunes away. If that stops, and what if a section of a city decays and isn't work keeping the dunes away? Yes, the sand will "consume" it.
The oil kings are attempting the "pivot". They are fat, lazy, and unmotivated.
I get really bored hearing someone talking about us like this. While your knowledge about Arab countries comes from an all-inclusive trip to Tunisia or something.
The west always plays a big role in keeping dictators all over the place, who don't care about education or anything other than their chair. People are ignorant and if you look fancy or different, even if you are native, they will look at you like that. Not entirely your fault, but your politicians love it, and use their super powers to keep it as it is.
I didn't blame the west, I said they play a role. I realize there were a lot of issues before the US become a world leader and even before the British/French colonization.
I will say it in a different way, WE ARE NOT YOUR ENEMY, but you are too blind not to realize that by yourself.
What a weird comment full of assumptions and hatred.
Nothing in the parent comment warrants what you said. What happens in practice is that being white in poorer countries makes you stand out and sometimes this comes with negative feelings of being unwanted there.
This is just a fact being told and it doesn’t justify a “you guys and your politics” comment. It’s just to point out, perhaps, that some places are more welcoming of foreigners than others.
Arabs are mixed-race my friend, some of them are white.
Your comment reflects your lack of knowledge about us.
I don't hate western people for being western or white. I respect a lot of them and would love to learn from them.
Some places are more welcoming because people have more knowledge about dealing with foreigners and know more about their culture. So it comes back to education and being open to other cultures as I said, which dictators will never care about. They take money and weapons from you, then tell the people a lot of nonsense about you. People don't really know you. Then when someone tries to tell you this, you say your comment is full of assumptions and hatred.
Also, your media plays a big role in making people see us like animals, watch "bad reel arabs" and it should tell you more about that.
Hilarious. You continue making assumptions about everyone here. You don’t know my media and you don’t know what I know. You assume I’m talking about Arab countries while I just mentioned “poorer countries”, as if you’re the only one around.
I’m talking out of my own experience in Africa, Asia and South America. I don’t go flashing out money around and I know exactly how I’m seen and how I’m treated in every place I’ve lived in. And no, I‘ve never been in a resort and I live in local housing trying to learn the language. So kindly go f yourself.
In my first comment I said "Are you western?", so the rest of the comment goes if he/she was western. And the thread is about Arab countries, so replying while assuming you are talking about Arab countries is also valid.
I am not sure who is full of hatered here, telling me to go f myself while I am trying to say my understanding about a place I know more than you do.
I say that because you came out saying you are “tired” of people talking like that and answering with worse behavior. You’re not here to discuss it but just to attack strangers, which is why I’m using this tone.
“Are you western?” is not an acceptable start. How would you like it if I started my comment with: “Are you black?” — regardless of whether you are, which is my point.
Judging from your comments, you are not in a position to talk about my behaviour.
I asked that, because we always get that from most western people. Western media which is being watched all over the world shape us in a certain way, while they play a role in keeping our countries as it is. You just want to bully and cancel an Arab my friend because you hate us, that's all.
Sorry that you feel that way; detach from the media because I feel a lot of anger coming from you towards westerners. I don’t hate you. I just got triggered by your denial of our mistreatment and your whataboutism.
I hope to visit more Arab countries soon and make more friends there.
I appreciate your feelings. I responded this way because the first comment I responded to which says "I will never visit an Arab country" and "it was pretty much the same everywhere" should have a better analysis before he/she cancel entire countries this way. I am sorry for what they have experienced, but we need to be honest if we want a change to this mad world.
From my point of view, I could say "What a weird comment full of assumptions and hatred" about the parent comment.
I've travelled back and forth from Dubai for business and other emirates and countries and never had that experience.
When you say "fact being told", you actually mean "anecdote being shared".
Nothing from my experience indicates an automatic feeling of hatred towards me and my wife when going to these countries. In fact, the opposite.
And don't get me wrong. I have my issues with these countries and their governments, just like I have my issues with many other countries, but that doesn't mean you dismiss the entire population.
Maybe it's time you engaged with the cultures. I'm sure it'll be "No thanks". Surprise me.
> Maybe it's time you engaged with the cultures. I'm sure it'll be "No thanks". Surprise me.
I’ll surprise you: English is not my first language, I haven’t been in my home country since 2015, I speak 3 languages fluently, I’m currently living in Indonesia and can already speak my fourth language (although not well). I lived 3-15 months each in more than 10 countries.
You got the wrong person. I know what I’m talking about because I’ve lived it.
You mean you've lived in an enviroment where these things tend to happen.
Maybe it's time you up the standard of your associates. Those standards are high and low in all countries. It's your choice to associate or tolerate them or find those that have a higher standard.
Where the Western "Oh god, it's so tiring vacationing amongst the sahhhvages. Pass the gin, darling?" reaction still happens, it's based on the perception that in the tourist's home country, the law means what it says, and in the visited country, context is king. That's a useful adjustment to make. However, law enforcement in the West seems to be catching up in that respect.
For those who did not bother to read the article, it is about fraud during the financial crisis. I feel sad for Cornelius and wish he is set free. As a resident of Dubai for 30 years, I am always curious to learn things that I may have missed about 'my city', yet this article is misleading in many ways, its few first paragraph where it states that Ryan Cornelius 'thought the authorities had simply made a mistake;' Really? He has taken a loan to complete a project in Dubai yet he took the money for a project in Pakistan. Later the writer says'Cornelius’s business forged invoices for items such as furniture and building materials to match the investment capital being funnelled to the Plantation. A later civil case, brought by dib in Britain, concluded that Cornelius was “fully implicated” in the creation of fabricated invoices to perpetrate a fraud'.
The Economist used to be a decent publication with great journalism, unfortunately that is not the case anymore.
If you read long enough, they start a section with "Cornelius undoubtedly committed fraud." I think the bigger takeaway is the lack of the rule of law. The crime he committed only carried a three-year jail term. This was later increased by trumping up the charge to 'fraud against the government' (because the government owned a minority stake in the bank) and then he was held in prison even beyond that term because he still owed payment on the loan despite the bank repossessing collateral worth several times the loan amount.
One of my additional takeaways here though is the failure of the British Foreign Office. Part of the service I expect my embassy to provide is assistance if I were to get caught up in a foreign legal system, even if this is only to connect me with a local lawyer. I also expect them to exert diplomatic pressure if the local courts or prosecutors are applying a double standard to foreigners.
It is less about fraud and more about the existence of draconian laws (imprisoning debtors) in a place that professes modernity and manipulation of or utter disregard for said laws by those in high places. All parties including the main lender knew about the irregularities you cited, yet they agreed to restructure the loan. The man's fraud charge normally carries a 3 year sentence but he's still in prison 13 years later because his sentence got extended based on the bank's request.
Imprisoning debtors has been a request from British banks to operate in the country. Yes, banks wield vast powers but when you are playing with billions you gotta pay to play .I lost my life savings in that crisis, for no reason at all on my part. It was the greed of banks and many fraudsters .
I was rightfully imprisoned in Dubai, which is very rare to admit, I was drunk on a public beach and kissing my girlfriend in Ramadan, in jail for 24 hours, every prisoner there claimed to be innocent, even a Russian mafia thug, that was as hilarious as this article form the Economist.
" I was drunk on a public beach and kissing my girlfriend in Ramadan,"
Oh man, the trifecta - Alchohol, Ramadan+Beach + With a woman not a member of your family. In the three+ months I was in Dubai in 2015, I was nervous even shaking hands in a business meeting with a woman (and obviously would never do so with a local woman, couldn't even be in an elevator alone with one) - was instructed very strictly about appropriate behavior during Ramadan (don't expose your knees on the beach).
Counter Intuitively, I've never been in any city in the world where the hotel lounges were so aggressive in serving alcohol. I ended up drinking more alcohol in Dubai in a month than I would the rest of the year in other cities around the world.
> I was rightfully imprisoned in Dubai, which is very rare to admit, I was drunk on a public beach and kissing my girlfriend in Ramadan, in jail for 24 hours
Many western people think they can just go anywhere and expect laws to work the same as they do at home. I would not go to a country with such insanity but if you do, observe the local laws and customs. They don’t put up 100s of scary posters at the Thai border for nothing for instance, tourists seem to blatantly break these religious rules and they will face consequences. Same with a lot of Middle East, African and Asian countries. Just do your research or simply do not go; it is not like Europe or the US, although of course for most people it feels like it because they don’t get caught (by pure luck; I doubt most holidaying for a week in Dubai know about this) when they kiss on Ramadan.
Yeah, they really buried the admission of fraud pretty deep in the article. They forged invoices and spent 342m on unauthorized riskier projects. Sounds like the sentence may be excessive, but not the conviction.
To me at least, the issue is less about his guilt, and more about the lack of due process. In this case he was guilty, but in many others the lack of due process provides a way of punishing someone without any oversight or fair treatment and trial.
Because it isn't really relevant if he was guilty or not. Being arrested for a crime, forced to sign a document in a language you don't understand, no access to legal or diplomatic representation, repeatedly denied any hearing or appeal, and charged with a crime retroactively is what is being questioned.
This article is not about someone's innocence, it's about the system and processes, some of which are considered illegal by the UAE's own constitution.
But the article is written in a deceptive way and appears to rely totally on the testimony of a man they admit was a large scale fraudster, implying that many of the things it claims may be false.
The hook in the article is the following claim: "foreigners doing business in Dubai are often unaware that local politicians and businessmen – elite figures are often both – may use the courts to pursue vendettas, settle scores or raid assets they covet. Even the smallest debt can lead to years in jail. Cornelius is just one of thousands of expats who are either imprisoned in Dubai after falling foul of the emirate’s draconian legal system."
So they are presenting Cornelius as an innocent, almost random person with a small debt, who is merely an example of what could happen to anyone doing business in Dubai. That's a lot of people and thus a topic of general interest.
Later on we learn that in fact Cornelius was even by his own admission a massive fraudster, operating in the hundreds of millions range. Yes, Dubai's court system sounds like a joke. Not a good look for them. But this guy is hardly a source of generalizable lessons that might interest other people especially as it becomes clear later in the article that he appears to have been specifically targeted by the Sheikh himself.
I'm actually quite appalled at how far the Economist has fallen. I haven't read it for years and didn't expect such a manipulatively written article from them.
I think when sums go over what local worker can earn in their lifetime. The life in prison is fully justified. That sounds to me as reasonable standard.
> I've read of women being raped and then being charged for reporting it which essentially admits sex outside of marriage
That's more true of Saudi Arabia, than UAE. The first thing you are told to tell your female relatives is to never ever travel alone outside in SA, anywhere, as the police can and do use that as an excuse to arrest them and molest or rape them. The reverse also happens - some rich womenfolk often seduce their male servants / drivers to have sex with them. If the guy wants to stop, some of the women blackmail them with threat to report them for attempted rape. (Source: one of my distant relative who worked as a driver in a Saudi household).
A female World Cup official is facing a sentence of 100 lashes and seven years in jail for 'extramarital sex' after she reported being raped while working in Qatar.
Paola Schietekat, 28, from Mexico, was working for the World Cup organising committee when she complained that she was raped by an associate who broke into her apartment and threatened to kill her.
She reported the June 6, 2021 attack to the Qatari authorities, who responded by accusing her of having an affair and charged her with 'extramarital sex', which is illegal in the Gulf state.
Schietekat was told by lawyers that one way of avoiding conviction was to marry her attacker but instead decided to flee the country, leaving behind what she called her 'dream job'.
The charges against Schietekat, who is a behavioural economist, are still valid and she is expected to be sentenced in absentia on March 6.
In San Francisco if someone walks into your shop and steals less than $950 worth of goods there's pretty much nothing you can do about it; is that rule of law?
Yes, that is literally a written law that is being properly followed. Although the end result may be questionable, there is a legal framework by which disputes could be reasonably resolved, while trying to preserve the rights of all parties involved.
In other places you have no such thing and, trust me, things are much worse.
Because promising not to is how he got elected. In other words, a left wing political coalition that wasn't able to get the law changed via the normal routes were able to eliminate the rule of law instead.
In the article, it's mentioned that people there are held in jail for decades for debts below $1000. That's the "debt trap" in the title.
I'd argue that I'd rather let someone steal than let them rot in jail for such a long time, for such a low monetary value, be it from debt or from theft. I understand you may disagree, that's why we do politics.
Additionally, which country has the best "rule of law", comparatively? Talking in absolutes in that regard is moot in my opinion.
> In the article, it's mentioned that people there are held in jail for decades for debts below $1000. That's the "debt trap" in the title.
Eh, lots of people are in jail in the US primarily due to their inability to pay court fees. Many because they couldn't pay the public defender fees.[1] Lots of cases where the accumulation of court fees dwarfs the financial costs of their original crime, and are punished much more for not being able to pay for fees than for their original crime.
Oh, and in some states they suspend your driver's license for nonpayment of these fees. This makes it even harder to work and earn money.
>>I'd argue that I'd rather let someone steal than let them rot in jail for such a long time, for such a low monetary value, be it from debt or from theft.
There is a middle ground between these two extremes. Also, if you want to compare costs, you have to factor in the deterrence effect of the latter, which will translate to much less lost in theft, and in additional store security.
Your rights can be infringed by any person on Earth at any time they please. But then, laws can be invoked to make said person stop and to apply the appropriate punishment/reparations.
All citizens of the United States shall have the same right, in every State and Territory, as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.
(R.S. § 1978.)
+
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.
(R.S. § 1979; Pub. L. 96–170, § 1, Dec. 29, 1979, 93 Stat. 1284; Pub. L. 104–317, title III, § 309(c), Oct. 19, 1996, 110 Stat. 3853.)
San Francisco is definitely terrible right now, but even so, having people in jail who shouldn't be is way, way worse than having people out of jail who shouldn't be.
I've been as a tourist and had expat family live there for ~15 years. It's safe until it's not. Any unexpected confrontation or interaction with the officials can go sideways quick because they will fabricate whatever story fits their preferred reality and subject you to the consequences of it. The driving example is the most easily discussed because it's common to witness the locals simply not following laws or basic safety. This is like rich guy in a lambo doing 3x the speed limit and deciding to drive the wrong direction and does quick and unexpected U turn causing an accident. You see this stuff regularly. But, he's not at fault because of his Emirati status and probably some level of caste system within that I don't fully understand. He could literally wreck his car, cause a fatality in the process, and just walk away from it with limited questioning from officials. The officials will find a way to explain it that does not cause bad PR for an Emirati.
It's best to have a handler. We had a guy that was a fixer. He worked for my family's employer technically and was available to all the expat employees in Dubai, but he was like the well connected guy you have on speed dial and call immediately if anything occurs. He'd swoop in and money would change hands and/or a phone call would be made and everything would magically be solved. I think in the 15 years they ended up calling him about 10 times and they're all insane stories over beers. Luckily, the few weeks I was there things were pretty quiet.
Big Oil. They had lots of folks making expat life safe/comfortable and obviously tons of political influence.
He was probably technically a contractor so the company had separation from the bribes that took place. Probably not practical to find someone like that for a short vacation but if you’re an expat or spending an extended time there you could find someone like this. It’s not cheap. Sounds horrible, but At the very least, hire a guide to be with you and take the fall for anything that happens. Mostly this means Hire a driver and don’t operate a vehicle. Other things are pretty low risk if you’re just engaging in typical tourist stuff in typical tourist areas.
If you are afraid of the lack of rule of law, there are not many countries we need to avoid. Japan has a 99.995% of inculpation after their police interview. And that has to do with the fact that their interview can lawfully last for 22 days, renewable. You can’t even avoid USA: 95% of jailmates are there upon self-admission of guilt without external proof, ie. without objective proof besides self-incrimination.
Incorrect: Japan has a 99.95% conviction rate for cases that go to trial. This is partly achieved by lengthy pretrial detention determined to extract confessions out of people, but equally importantly by not prosecuting any cases that are less than watertight (read: the culprit has already confessed).
This raises a good point. A just state should be efficient at identifying crimes; an unjust state can charge suspects who will never be convicted, or harass them without charging them.
Man people really see some blog post about Japanese law by a person who doesn’t speak the language and think it’s some 1984 style country.
In all honesty you can basically apologize out of a lot of crimes and police generally don’t bother with anything else unless there’s video evidence, they catch you in the act, or you’re a high profile person involved in a high profile act.
Just never get caught with drugs in your possession, and if you get caught with personal amounts, apologize and cry. Not kidding.
Too bad they don't teach the crying technique before you visit! The young man I'm familiar with was locked up in holding (not sent to prison) for six months then put on a plane to his home country and told never to come back. That was a REALLY expensive joint.
In the US, unless they have a solid case and offer a plea bargain, you’re better off not talking to cops and staying silent until they give up. In Japan, once you know they have somewhat of a case, you’re better off making it easy for the police and immediately apologizing. They mostly just drag people who don’t comply and haven’t really learned their lesson (it’s assumed you won’t be dumb enough to make the same mistake twice).
Most first time drug cases end with an apology, crying, and being let go. Americans make the mistake of thinking not talking will help, so police hold them until they do. It can help in bigger crimes, though, since if the evidence is hard to prove, they’ll just hold you for a while and hope you’ll confess, but if not, often let you go instead of risk losing at a trial.
Japanese drug prosecution is about as strict as American child porn prosecution, with the same para-judicial stigma about possession of it. If you are caught with drugs in Japan, you are going to be doing hard time, and even when you get out of jail people will not want to associate with you. In the rare case where the police prosecute you without evidence, you're still going to wind up spending months in a holding cell waiting for exoneration, and have to explain to everyone in the meantime that you were falsely accused of drug possession.
(The inverse is also true: Japan is rather lax about CSAM possession, about to the same degree as America is lax about weed possession. It's technically a crime but most people caught will be let off with a fine and a warning.)
You’re incorrect as to the US, and I suspect as to Japan as well. Lots of criminals in America plead guilty, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no “external proof” of guilt. Cops are lazy and criminals are dumb. So what you end up with in nearly all cases is that cops make arrests in easy cases with tons of evidence. Confronted with the video tape, cell phone records, etc., the accused then pleads guilty. Rarely do you see the kind of cases you hear about on Podcasts where guilt turns on circumstantial evidences and confessions. I’ve seen this from inside the court system.
My wife had a homicide trial where prosecutors had a complete video tape record of the accused shooting the victim and driving back to his house. The trial was just cutting from one CCTV feed to the next as the accused drove around town. The jury found him guilty—because of course they did.
At what point would you waive the right to a trial-by-jury? I think about that from time to time; if I'm accused of something, what crimes are less sympathetic to my peers than to a judge?
Your peers aren’t sympathetic to crime at all. A 2014 sentencing project report found that supermajorities of people (including both white and Black people, by the way) believe that the criminal justice system is “not harsh enough.”
That's not even going into their de facto slavery with foreign construction workers, environmental damage, and sexism.