Dubai: Dubai Police are solving squabbles in parks and neighbourhoods without laying charges against people, a police official said on Wednesday.
From disputes on chickens and dogs and general arguments, officers are doing their best to use friendly means to find solutions to everyday problems in Dubai.
This emphasis on mediation between parties comes on heels of police introducing tolerance policies to keep minor cases out of the courtroom, by negotiating with parties beforehand.
In a recent confrontation, for example, a family and a man were involved in a verbal volley of insults, after their pet dogs fought during a walk in a park in Al Barsha.
Brigadier Abdul Raheem Bin Shafe’ei, Director of Al Barsha Police Station, said that they received a call about the argument between both parties. “The man was walking his big dog in the park and the family was walking their smaller dog at the same time. As the leash [on the bigger dog] was too long, it attacked the small dog. The pets’ owners exchanged insults and both came to the police station,” Brig Bin Shafe’ei said.
At the police station, officers listened to both sides of the confrontation and solved the dispute without recording a case.
“Pets can cause problems and fights between people. We’ve received incidents of such disputes before,” he said.
In a separate animal-related incident, Al Barsha Police Station received a call from a man complaining about the noise from his neighbour, who uses his property for poultry farming. “The chickens were noisy and disturbing the other neighbours too. We solved the problem in friendly way.”
In another case involving pigeons, residents in a Dubai neighbourhood filed a complaint against their neighbour who was housing pigeons, after he refused to listen to them. Again, Al Barsha Police Station officers settled the matter after speaking to the tenant and giving him a warning in cooperation with Dubai Municipality.
Brig Bin Shafe’ei said that usually they try to settle such disputes without taking the issue to court.
“Many calls we receive are just a heated reaction, and we talk to the disputing parties to solve the problem. We are working on spreading tolerance,” he added.
