Bentwings,
One thing not mentioned is that every, and I mean EVERY telephone call in the whole bloody country is monitored.
They brought in the engineers from Siemans years ago and set up a computer system that scans every call and records them.
If any word or phrase is said that is on "the list" then a human listens to it. Then if anything is said that is "not correct" or suspect a policeman and mutawa at a minimum is dispatched to the house and life goes downhill from there.
I was married to a German lady for a long time while living in Saudi and she met another German at a health spa. We had dinner with the couple and since we were all speaking German they felt a bit more comfortable in what they talked about. He was one of the engineers on the project and said to never, ever say anything over any phone in Kingdom that you did not want to hear in a court.
Would hope that Dubai does not have this in place. Saudi is indeed a very different place to live. At least Dubai, Bahrain and Kuwait are a bit more progressive in some ways.
CD