I have lived on 4 continents now and before I came to live here I had a very skewed view of how the UAE is. There laws are very consistent with the rest of the western world. You probably know someone that works here or has worked here recently and asked them how it is here.
From the link you posted, what they did to address those concerns:
In November 2020, the United Arab Emirates overhauled its legal system to loosen restrictions on alcohol consumption, permit cohabitation, and increase penalty for honor killings, among other changes
Not that I think that those things were the big changes, but the headline articles about what we find strange (in the western parts of the world) hasn't been there, except for the guy who got his fine upgraded to jail time for the incident with airport staff.