DUBAI Dubai International School (DIS) is weighing legal action after pictures and text from its website found their way onto two separate portals – one run by a non-existent institute in Abu Dhabi and the other claiming to be the real DIS website.
The principal of the Garhoud school, Nafez Hayek, said he was unaware of the phony websites till they were brought to his notice by XPRESS on Monday morning.
“It’s shocking. They have used photos of our campus playground, students and even a picture of our Al Quoz branch principal receiving an award. We will take legal action.”
Hayek, who has been with the school since its start, said the content of the non-existent school www.hisabudhabi.com and another website http://orell.ae/dis, claiming to be the ‘official’ website of Dubai International School are severely damaging to his institution. The real website of DIS is www.dis.sch.ae.
Old picture
“If you closely look at the picture of the playground used by the nonexistent Howard International School, you will notice that it’s a very old picture, taken from our archives maybe. In the backdrop you will see our neighbouring school. It was still being built then,” said Hayek.
Interestingly, XPRESS found out that the website www.hisabudhabi.com was registered in Queensland, Australia, and was hosted from the Netherlands while orell.ae has kept its registration credentials anonymous.
“Louis Fernandez, the man claiming to be the principal of DIS, Garhoud, is actually a stranger to us and the picture he has used is that of the principal of our Al Quoz branch – Akram Zayour,” Hayek, a Canadian citizen of Palestinian origin, said. “We have no connection with either of them whatsoever and have nothing to do with Howard International.”
“There’s no doubt that the images belong to our school and that they have been lifted from our website. Their overall website too looks uncannily similar,” Hayek said.
He added that the dubious websites put their reputation at stake because the one claiming to be their original website intriguingly has the school’s correct contact details.
The Dubai International School – located in Garhoud since 1987 – has over 2,500 students from kindergarten to grade 12, mostly from Arab backgrounds, and follows an American programme.
