Mary Robinson faces backlash as she poses with ‘kidnapped’ Dubai princess
HUMAN rights groups have criticised Mary Robinson for agreeing to meet a Dubai princess who was reportedly kidnapped and forced to return home.
Yesterday, former President Robinson described Sheikha Latifa Al Maktoum, as a ‘troubled young woman’ who is now ‘receiving psychiatric care’.
Before reportedly fleeing Dubai earlier this year, Latifa had warned that her sisters and others who disagreed with the regime are frequently heavily medicated and described as mentally ill.
It was reported that she had hoped to
travel to the US and claim asylum, but she was captured just a few miles from the coast and taken back to Dubai, where she disappeared from sight… until Mrs Robinson’s trip earlier this month.
Latifa’s father, Sheikh Mohammad Al Maktoum, is the ruler of Dubai and the Maktoum family, which has major horseracing interests in Ireland, invited Mrs Robinson to meet Latifa after a BBC documentary revealed her attempted flight from Dubai last March. Mrs Robinson insisted
the 33-year-old now regrets making a video in which she announced her intentions to leave – a video not released until after her capture.
Mrs Robinson said in a radio interview yesterday that Latifa’s ‘loving family’ do not want her to ‘endure any more publicity’.
But Kenneth Rose, executive director of Human Rights Watch, yesterday challenged Mrs Robinson’s views.
He tweeted: ‘Mary Robinson says UAE Princess Latifa is “troubled,” suggesting a pre-existing condition, though I’d be troubled too if I tried to escape a gilded prison and was kidnapped back.’
Women’s rights campaigner Aisha AliKhan, said Mrs Robinson was being used to ‘whitewash’ the escape bid of Latifa.
Other campaigners want to know what independent evidence the former president and UN High Commissioner on Human Rights saw before she spoke out.
Her comments, on yesterday’s BBC Today programme, came days after photographs emerged of her with Sheikha Latifa.
Until that point, nothing had been seen or heard of the princess since March.
Following a campaign by human rights organisations including Detained in Dubai and Amnesty International, her plight was the subject of a December 6 BBC documentary,
‘If you’re a female your life is so disposable’
Escape From Dubai: The Mystery Of The Missing Princess. It included interviews with a French security expert and a Finnish friend of the princess, who spoke about being on the boat when commandos took Latifa away.
The programme detailed Latifa’s claims that she was tortured and put in prison after her first attempt to escape and how one of her sisters was also jailed after she attempted to escape from Dubai.
‘If you’re a female your life is so disposable,’ she says in the video. Later she says: ‘If
you’re watching this video, it is not such a good thing. Either I am dead or I am in a very, very bad situation.’
Toby Cadman, the barrister tasked by Detained in Dubai to represent Sheikha Latifa, said last night: ‘It is quite disappointing to see a person of Mrs Robinson’s stature brushing over what are very serious complaints. There are credible allegations that a number of individuals were unlawfully attacked in international waters.’
Mrs Robinson and her foundation have not yet replied to a request for comment.