DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A British woman stripped down to her bikini and strutted defiantly through a swanky Dubai mall after an Emirati woman covered head-to-toe in black confronted her for wearing a low-cut shirt, police said Thursday.
Mall security detained both women and took them to a police station for questioning Wednesday. They were released later in the day after the Emirati woman lodged a complaint for public indecency against the Briton, said a police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Police said the British woman, whose name was not released, was shopping in the five-star Dubai Mall when the Emirati woman approached her and criticized her for wearing a shirt she felt violated the conservative dress code followed by most women in this Muslim country.
The two argued, then the Briton stripped down to her bikini and walked through the mall filled with luxury shops and near hotels with swimming pools.
The mall, one of the world's largest, has signs asking shoppers to dress modestly, although Westerners routinely ignore the advisories.
The incident is the latest in a string of cases involving Westerners in Dubai, a cosmopolitan, city-state with the most lenient social codes in the Gulf but a tendency to crackdown on foreigners who ignore the rules.
In March, a British couple was sentenced to a month in jail for kissing in public while an Indian couple was sentenced to three months' prison for exchanging steamy text messages.
In 2008, two Britons accused of having sex on the beach got three months behind bars, though their sentences were later suspended.

You go girl. Wear whatever you want to!!!! It amazes me that in the Muslim countries they feel women should be covered head to toe, people shouldn't kiss in public. You know what- WHATEVER!!!!!  Funny these are the same people who think it is ok to produce terrorists. Terrorists who came from those countries and killed many people in New York and in Washington, DC. They have an issue with what people wear but it's ok to blow people up. WHO IS WARPED??? I really want to know.
So yes to the woman who wore the bikini in the mall, yes to the people kissing in public and yes to the couple sending steamy texts to each other. You are offensive in the Muslim countries but I give you a big thumbs up for doing what you want to do because the last time I looked GOD was the only one who has the right to judge you.