Steps To Take If You Are Arrested Abroad

Everyone looks forward to their dream foreign holiday and the opportunity to relax but for some people, it ends in the nightmare of arrest abroad. Obviously, there are many reasons why this may happen and not all of them are necessarily the fault of the detained person. One of the biggest causes of arrest problems is not understanding the language when being apprehended by the police which can easily lead to arrest if you are perceived as not cooperating. In Spain, if a person ignores an instruction given by a police officer he can regard it as "disobedience" which is a criminal offence. The language barrier can also be responsible for being drawn into arguments with the local people that get out of hand and escalate into violence.

Another area that can lead to problems is not understanding the local laws and inadvertently breaching them. Laws can vary considerably from country to country and behaviour that may be regarded as tolerable or a minor breach in one country may have an entirely different implication elsewhere. An example of the differing attitudes is that individuals can jump into the fountains in Trafalgar Square in London without any problem whereas it is illegal to cool off by getting into the Trivoli fountain. Heritage buildings must be respected, women are not permitted to wear stiletto heels when visiting the Parthenon, climbing on or writing on the walls of such buildings is illegal in a number of countries and amounts to criminal damage.

The cities in some countries that are tourist magnets do not permit picnics or even standing or sitting for too long in a popular spot. Venice has a long list of things that it asks visitors not to do, including swimming in the canals, staying too long on the bridges, getting changed in public or sightseeing topless or in swimwear; offenders...