#FreeLatifa: London activists call for release of Dubai Princess on Human Rights Day

Campaigners gathered outside the Emirati embassy in London this afternoon to call for the release of the captive Dubai Princess, Sheikha Latifa al-Maktoum, and an end to torture in the UAE.   

Today’s action, organised jointly by ICFUAE and Detained in Dubai, was staged to commemorate the UN’s World Human Rights Day.

Over the last year leading rights organisations have noted a continuation of human rights abuses in the Emirates.

A case which has garnered much attention has been the disappearance of Princess Latifa, the daughter of Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum - the ruler of Dubai.

According to rights groups, she has been held incommunicado since her abduction earlier this year by Indian and Emirati special forces during an attempt to flee the country to seek asylum in the US. 

In March 2018, the thirty-two-year old attempted to escape the UAE after revealing the torture and abuse she had suffered at the hands of her father and ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum. Nobody has seen or heard from her since her capture.

Outside the Emirati embassy, dozens of activists, including the prominent human rights campaigner Peter Thatchell, demanded her immediate release and safe passage out of Dubai.

ICFUAE also raised the plight of Maryam al-Balushi and Alia Abdel Nour, two female political prisoners in the UAE who recently complained of severe abuse at Abu Dhabi’s al-Watbha prison.

Their testimonies came to light after a series of letters and audio recordings were smuggled out of the jail earlier this year. In them, the prisoners provided details of torture, inhumane conditions and the degrading treatment inmates are forced to endure in the facility.

ICFUAE are demanding that authorities allow UN inspectors access to Al-Watbha to monitor conditions.