No news from Princess Latifa

The life and freedom of a 35-year-old woman are at stake, and the videos she recorded until the middle of last summer, denouncing her captivity, have put enormous pressure on the United Arab Emirates, and on the Emir of Dubai, the Sheikh Mohamed Bin Rashid al Maktoum.

But he is not the only one to suffer it.

The international community's condescension to one of the richest and most powerful men in the world also takes its toll.

The UK Government has timidly started to ask an explanation from the friend of Queen Elizabeth II who boasted of her winning horses at the Ascot races.

The UN has reactivated an investigation of the alleged cruel treatment inflicted on two of his daughters by the statesman, poet, and modernizer of the Gulf, after the former president of Ireland and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, let it be used as an alibi to hide the alleged abuses of the emir.

The Emirates Government has not managed to clear up doubts on Friday about whether Princess Latifa, kidnapped three years ago on the high seas while fleeing from Dubai, is still alive, despite the tepid statement issued by her Embassy in London.

“We want to thank all those who have expressed concern for her [the princess's] well-being, even though the media coverage in no way reflects her current situation.

The family confirms that His Highness is being cared for at home, supported by his family and professional doctors, ”the text said.

Three people have kept Latifa's cause alive for three years.

Finnish Tiina Jauhialnen, who helped the princess try to escape on March 4, 2018;

David Haigh, a British lawyer who was held captive for two years in Dubai;

and Marcus Essabri, a maternal cousin of Latifa currently residing in London.

For almost a year they were able to maintain communication with her, using a mobile phone that they managed to reach her.

This summer they lost contact, and began to fidget.

After an intense debate with the legal team that advises them, they chose to deliver to various British media videos recorded by Latifa in the bathroom of the residence in Dubai where she claimed that she was being held.

“It is the only room where I can lock myself up.

I am a prisoner.

I have no freedom.

They have me enslaved in this cage and my life is not in my hands, ”says the princess with her head resting on a corner of the wall.

For the first time in three years, the UK Government and the UN were forced to respond and demanded proof of the princess's life from the Emirates.

"Given what we've just seen, I think people would want, as a matter of humanity, to see that she is alive and well," British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said Wednesday.

"We have expressed our concern about the situation, in light of the alarming video evidence that has emerged this week," said Liz Throssell, the spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Friday.

"We have requested a proof of life, and more information."

Even Boris Johnson himself has had to comment on the matter, but has chosen to rely on the investigation opened by the United Nations.

• Princess Latifa, daughter of the Emir of Dubai: "They have me kidnapped in a chalet"

Lawyer David Haigh, who is in charge of the

#FreeLatifa

campaign

(Free Latifa) and was imprisoned in Dubai in 2016 for two years, has confirmed to EL PAÍS that he had just delivered, on the morning of this Friday, the videos from the princess to the UN investigators.

“It's the same thing they did two years ago, when Mary Robinson allowed herself to be photographed with Latifa.

That too was proof of life.

And now they will repeat the play.

It is like going around in a circle.

It is not enough for political leaders to assure that they are following the matter closely and with concern.

They must distance themselves from the emir until he allows his two daughters to be released. "

“This time, they haven't even bothered to accompany their explanations with a photo.

No one is buying his ploy, "says Tiina Jauhialnen, the

capoeira

teacher

(Brazilian martial art)

, irritated by phone.

who became a close friend of Latifa.

Together they planned their escape.

The two shared a cabin on the yacht hired to cross the Indian Ocean, reach the shores of India and conquer freedom.

“We began to hear heavy boot stomping on deck, screaming, and even gunfire.

Latifa immediately understood that we had been discovered.

It was clear that they were people sent by his father.

They threatened to blow my brains out right there.

They dragged me, and took half of my body overboard.

They put guns to my head from both sides, ”recalls Jauhialnen.

It was a commando of Indian forces, and they handed over the princess and her two accomplices (the third was the captain of the boat) to an Emirati military vessel on the high seas.

“During the first four or five days they announced to me that I was going to be sentenced to the death penalty, due to the seriousness of my actions.

They then suggested that he would face life in prison.

It was from the publication of the first Latifa video, and from all the media attention it generated, that the Finnish Government got involved in my release and everything changed.

They told me that the emir had forgiven me ”, he relates calmly, without contradictions in his story.

Six wives, 30 children

The emir of Dubai has been known to as many as six wives and he has 30 children.

His last wife, Princess Haya of Jordan, currently resides in London, where she fled from Dubai with her two children.

She faces her husband in a turbulent divorce process, in which the judge has already taken for granted that Mohamed Bin Rashid ordered the kidnapping of Latifa.

And that of his sister Shamsa, held by force in 2000 in the middle of the streets of the university town of Cambridge, in the United Kingdom, and returned to Dubai.

The United Arab Emirates, whose rulers have wanted it to be a place of tourist attraction as well as a financial and technological advancement center, has in recent years become an important actor in the region, both due to its opposition to Iran and its recent relations with Israel.

These were all advantages that favored their international allies preferring to look the other way when it came to the internal family affairs of their rulers.

The Latifa case has made this double standard increasingly difficult to uphold.

“I always say that she is a woman who was born in the wrong place.

It does not belong to that culture.

All his friends were foreigners, but he couldn't travel or study, ”says Jauhialnen.

“And so far many people claimed that they did not understand all the commotion.

They saw Latifa, or Haya herself, as two privileged.

But it's not like that.

If you don't have freedom, money means nothing. "