Mary ‘doesn’t regret’ princess visit
FORMER Irish president Mary Robinson has said she has no regrets over getting involved in the case of a Dubai princess who tried to flee the United Arab Emirates.
Mrs Robinson, a former UN high commissioner for human rights, was criticised by rights groups after travelling to Dubai to meet Sheikha Latifa, daughter of Dubai ruler Sheikh Al-Maktoum, last December.
Following the meeting, Mrs Robinson described the 32-yearold princess as a ‘troubled young woman’. Speaking after an event in Trinity College Dublin yesterday, she defended her decision to get involved, saying that she went to help a friend.
She said: ‘She is the only member of the royal family that I met,
She ‘went to help a friend’
or that I know, and we’re friends.’
Mrs Robinson added that she had spoken out before about human rights violations in the UAE and would do so again.
‘I will speak out again where appropriate. Nothing has changed,’ she said.
Mrs Robinson said that since the meeting, she had reported to the UN high commissioner for human rights Michelle Bachelet about the matter and that she had appealed to her to follow up on the case.
‘I gave a written report just after I went and then I saw her in mid-January when I went to Geneva for a meeting on sustainable development goals and human rights,’ Mrs Robinson said.
‘I gave her a full account and I asked that her office would follow up on it. That’s what should happen in so far as possible.’
Mrs Robinson said previously she was ‘dismayed’ by commentary over her visit and that she had been invited by the family.
Authorities in the UAE released pictures of the December 15 meeting after friends and supporters said Sheikha Latifa disappeared following commandos storming a boat she was in off the coast of India after she fled the Emirates.
Sheikha Latifa had previously appeared in a 40-minute YouTube video saying she was imprisoned ‘off and on’ for several years, and abused. She said her sister, Shamsa, had been forced to return to Dubai and was being heavily drugged and detained.
Rights group Guernica 37 International Justice Chambers expressed concerned over Mrs Robinson’s meeting in Dubai.
The group said in a statement: ‘Mrs Robinson appears to have spent a couple of hours with Sheikha Latifa, and despite having no formal medical or psychiatric training, has somehow diagnosed her condition and concluded that she is receiving appropriate treatment.
‘It is unclear on what basis Mrs Robinson considers herself qualified to do so.’