New videos intended to show the daughter of the mighty Dubai ruler saying that she is being held against her have put a spotlight on human rights violations in the UAE.
“I don’t want to be held hostage in this prison villa, I just want to be free,” says Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum in a video, one of several released by the BBC that seems to show her in a barricaded house in the sparkling UAE city-state , Dubai.
“I don’t know what they plan to do to me,” she adds.
NBC News has not independently obtained or verified the videos. But a spokesman for the Latifa Livre campaign, a group that has long called for his release, confirmed that two of the people behind the campaign shared the videos with the British broadcaster.
Neither his father, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, nor the UAE authorities responded to the videos.
Latifa accused her father of holding her hostage in Dubai after she was caught trying to escape the city in 2018.
The daring escape attempt took her to Oman, before boarding a yacht bound for India. From there, she planned to fly to the United States and seek asylum. But after a week, the vessel was intercepted by Indian commanders and agents from the Emirates, who arrested everyone on board. Latifa was eventually returned to Dubai.
Emrati officials said earlier that Latifa’s case was a family matter and that she had not been arrested.
Her father, who also serves as prime minister and vice president in the United Arab Emirates, is very welcome in western capitals and was photographed alongside names like Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
However, advocates hope that the new videos will not only renew pressure on the country to free the princess, but also highlight broader abuses in the kingdom, which is most often associated with sunny holidays and big business.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, New York, tweeted that Dubai’s “reputation for tall buildings and playgrounds” should not obscure the fact that Mohammed “arrested his daughter, Princess Latifa, for wanting to escape his control. . “
The wealthy Gulf nation detains those who criticize the authorities and hundreds of activists and academics are serving long sentences, in many cases after unfair trials on vague charges, according to Human Rights Watch.
Emirati laws also discriminate against women, migrants and LGBTQ individuals, the organization says, adding that the families of the detained activists are also frequently harassed by the state’s security apparatus.
“There is absolutely no freedom of speech,” said Devin Kenney, a researcher from the Gulf of Amnesty International. “You absolutely cannot speak without fear in the UAE.”
Hamad al-Shamsi, an Emirati rights activist, who in 2012 was among 94 people accused of conspiring to overthrow the UAE government, said the country had succeeded in using public relations to deter Western lawmakers and media from report abuse in the country.
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“The United Arab Emirates is one of the few countries that widely violates human rights and can easily get away with it,” said al-Shamsi, who lives in Turkey. In 2013, he was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison in the Gulf nation, he added.
Saudi Arabia’s history of rights “was no worse” than that of the United Arab Emirates, said al-Shamsi, although there has been a steady stream of coverage of rights violations in the kingdom since the brutal murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
“The difference is in public relations work and lobbying,” said al-Shamsi, adding that programs such as the recent UAE mission to Mars were part of an effort to “beautify its image in the West, despite widespread violations of documented human rights “.
Last year, Ivanka Trump was among the high-profile women who spoke at a Global Women’s Forum in Dubai, which was attended by Mohammed, although her daughter was reportedly detained in the same city.
“Western allies have definitely failed to give any sustained attention to human rights in the country,” said Kenney of Amnesty International.
In the last months of the Trump administration, officials have negotiated the biggest arms sale ever between the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates, worth about $ 23.37 billion.
At the time, human rights groups called for the sale to be suspended, pointing to links from the Emirates to rights abuses in Yemen, among other issues. The Biden government stopped selling arms while examining the deal.
The UAE embassies in Washington and London did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News, nor did the Dubai Media Office.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Yasmine Salam contributed.