Jordan's Queen Noor asks for information on missing Dubai princess Shamsa
Queen Noor of Jordan has asked for information on missing Dubai Princess Shamsa, following reports that her younger sister Latifa was being held "hostage" by her father Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
Queen Noor, who serves on the board of commissioners for the
International Commission on Missing Persons, asked "Where is her sister
Shamsa??" on Twitter on Sunday, in a tweet that was accompanied by a BBC
article which claimed her younger sister Latifa was being held captive.
"I'm a hostage, I'm not free. I am imprisoned in this
jail. My life is not in my hands," the 35-year-old princess said, with her
back to a wall in a locked bathroom.
Last year, a British judge ruled that Sheikh Mohammed was
keeping both his daughters, Latifa and Shamsa, captive and had also kidnapped
the two on separate occasions.
Shamsa, it was claimed, had fled to the United Kingdom in
2000, only to be captured by Emirati agents in Cambridge, sedated and then
rendered by helicopter from the family's Newmarket home.
The judge also ruled that Dubai's emir waged a harassment
campaign against his former wife, Princess Haya bint Hussein, the step-daughter
of Queen Noor and half-sister of King Abdullah II of Jordan.
Haya claimed her relationship with Sheikh Mohammed broke
down completely in 2019, soon after she started visiting her step-daughter
Latifa and started asking questions about Shamsa.
On Friday, Latifa's family said she was being "cared
for at home" and said the footage broadcast by the BBC and media reporting
on the princess' plight was "not reflective of the actual position".
Since the release of the footage, rights groups have been
calling on the international community to pressure the UAE into releasing both
royals.
"Human rights organizations and UN bodies have
repeatedly called on the UAE to provide proof of life of these two adult women
and evidence that they are free to travel and leave their confinement,"
Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now
(Dawn), told Middle East Eye.
"There is no dispute to the evidence that Emir Mohamad
bin Rashid kidnapped his adult daughters and is holding them in forced
captivity. If the UAE was a country where the 'rule of law' meant anything at
all, the police would move immediately to arrest the Emir and free his
daughters from their cruel imprisonment.
"The UAE spends millions on PR spewing nonsensical
claims of 'women's empowerment' while it allows one of its most prominent
leaders to get away with the most retrograde domestic violence, kidnapping, and
cruelty against women in his own family."
The Sunday Express reported that Latifa's lawyers will
formally request that UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab seize her father's
assets under powers granted to the government by new UK human rights
legislation.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also said that the
Biden administration is closely monitoring the crisis.
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