Australian man Scott Richards has been held in Dubai's Al Muraqqabat police station for three weeks without charge.
Mr Richards, 42, was detained over promoting on social media a fundraising campaign to raise money for an Afghanistan refugee camp he had just returned from volunteering at.
Fundraising drives that have not been state approved are in breach of new charity laws that came into effect in the UAE in 2015.
Radha Stirling, from campaign group Detained in Dubai, said Mr Richards was detained on July 28 and has been held in the overcrowded prison with limited telephone access.
"It can be months before he is officially charged, and a court date will only be assigned once they agree to prosecute," Ms Stirling told the SMH.
Mr Richards, who is an Australian-British dual national, had been working as an economic development adviser in the UAE, where he has been living with his wife and two children.
“Scott has always been very generous soul and we are shocked and dismayed that his good-hearted nature has landed in him in trouble in Dubai," Mr Richard's brother Brett Richards told The Advertiser.
The Go Fund Me crowdsourcing campaign 'Warm UP Qambar' has so far raised almost half of their $35,000 goal, with the money to be used to buy taupaulins, blankets, sleeping bags and winter clothing.
"Without any sort of heating, they burn plastic to keep warm inside their makeshift homes, the toxic fumes causing immeasurable health problems and devastating the lungs of the young," the page says about the refugees in the Charahi Qambar camp, near Kabul.
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