2015: An American engineer was acquitted of flashing his middle finger to a Canadian businessman following an alleged road rage incident.

The court cleared the American of indecently gesturing in public and dropped the charges against him for uncorroborated evidence.

2014: A court convicted a Pakistani worker of flashing his middle finger to a 19-year-old jobless man, who was also convicted of flashing his finger to the worker.

The court handed the Pakistani defendant a deportation order.

When he defended himself in court, the Pakistani defendant said: “I am guilty for flashing my finger in his face... but I reacted to his and his compatriot’s behaviour.”

2013: The Appeal Court upheld a one month prison term against a British national, who was convicted of flashing his middle finger at a police patrol in Dubai. He was also handed a deportation order.

Public Prosecution accused the Briton of committing a lewd act in public.

Records said one of the patrol members testified that they flashed the high beam to the Briton to give them way, but he failed to do so. A witness said when they overtook him, the defendant flashed his middle finger at the police patrol.

2013:  A French engineer was handed a six-month suspended sentence for indecently gesturing in public in the faces of two plainclothed policemen while driving on Business Bay Bridge.

He was deported immediately.

It is worth mentioning that the engineer’s lawyer had argued before the court: “In Europe and Western countries, it’s an Anglo-Saxon habit that someone flashes his middle finger unlike in our culture… where it is an act punishable by law. The two cultures differ, whereby when someone flashes his finger in the West he/she has to raise his elbow then flip up his finger. In the West it is a normal reaction.”

2012: the Dubai Misdemeanours Court convicted the 44-year-old Iranian woman of committing an indecent gesture in public although she had claimed that she only bit her nails and had not flashed her middle finger.

The court also fined her Dh3,000 for consuming liquor.

The businesswoman flashed her finger at the Emirati policemen shortly after dining out with her friends in Palm Jumeirah.

She had pleaded innocent claiming that she bit her nails and scratched her finger due to a skin disease that she suffers from when the policemen “confusingly thought she flashed her finger in their face”.

2011: A British laparoscopic surgeon was cleared of indecently gesturing in public and flashing his middle in the face of an Emirati official following a road rage incident.

2010:  The Misdemeanours Court jailed a pilot, who flashed his middle finger at a policeman in an instance of road rage, for one month. He was also handed a deportation.

The defendant denied the charge and maintained that he flashed at the victim wanting to say ‘easy easy’.