A group of women forced in 2020 to a forced gynecological examination at Doha airport and who filed charges this month against the Qatari authorities summoned Qatar on Sunday to guarantee the safety of supporters at the World Cup which will begin on Sunday. next month.
In October 2020, passengers on ten Qatar Airways flights, including 13 Australians, complained that they had been forced to carry out gynecological examinations, carried out in order to find the mother of a newborn baby abandoned in the toilet. of the airport.
Read alsoWorld Cup 2022: how Qatar is trying to invite all-expenses-paid supporters
Two years later, five women this month filed lawsuits in Australia against the airline and the Qatari civil aviation authority, seeking compensation and damages for the trauma suffered, and demanding through their lawyers that this incident does not happen again.
"This group of brave women was forced to take legal action to tell Qatar that what happened was unacceptable and should not be allowed to happen again," lawyer Damian Sturzaker told AFP.
“With less than a month before the World Cup (November 20-December 18, editor's note), the women (who will travel to Qatar) are entitled to obtain from Qatar the assurance that human rights will be respected.
»
The "sincere apologies" of the Prime Minister
This incident having taken on a diplomatic dimension, the Prime Minister of Qatar had offered his “sincere apologies”.
According to documents filed in Australian federal court earlier this month, the five women were between the ages of 31 and 73 at the time and were all passengers on flight QR908 from Doha to Sydney, Australia.
VIDEO.
Qatar 2022: a test match flopped
While their plane was on the tarmac, an announcement in the cabin invited all women on board to leave the aircraft with their passports, and "people in uniform and armed entered the aircraft".
Four women were then taken to ambulances to be stripped naked and subjected to forced examinations of their genitals, as well as for one of them of her chest and stomach.
All of them said they suffered from post-traumatic stress.