UN human rights chief met Dubai princess, assured that she was well

GENEVA • The United Nations' human rights chief met Sheikha Latifa of Dubai in November and was assured that she was well, but did not immediately reveal the meeting over privacy concerns, the organisation has said.

The office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet wrote on Twitter last week about the meeting in Paris, but did not reveal the date.

The post, which included a picture of the two women smiling in front of a Paris metro station, came a year after the British media released videos of the princess saying she was being held hostage and feared for her life.

Responding to a query, the UN rights office said yesterday that "the meeting took place at the end of November in Paris, when the High Commissioner was en route to Burkina Faso and Niger for official visits".

"Latifa had requested the meeting," spokesman Elizabeth Throssell wrote in an e-mail.

She pointed to the "serious concerns earlier in 2021" about Sheikha Latifa's situation and recalled that Ms Bachelet's office had "publicly called for proof of life".

"This one-to-one meeting held in private in a hotel in Paris of course satisfies that."

Ms Throssell said Sheikha Latifa's legal adviser, Mr Niri Shan, had organised the meeting and attended the initial part of it, but that "the major part of the meeting was between the High Commissioner and Sheikha Latifa alone".

When asked about the late revelation of the meeting, Ms Throssell said that Sheikha Latifa had "expressed to the High Commissioner that she wished for her privacy to be respected". "We of course respect that," she said, adding that the Twitter post had been "issued with her agreement".

A statement from Sheikha Latifa herself, obtained by AFP yesterday, also highlighted her desire for privacy and described "a lengthy, positive and private meeting in Paris with the High Commissioner to assert her right to a private life, following persistent media speculation about her".

Sheikha Latifa, the 36-year-old daughter of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, ruler of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, had said in June last year that she was free to travel. She had made an unsuccessful attempt to flee the emirate in March 2018, escaping by boat with the help of friends before she was hauled back.

Last February, the BBC aired clips it said were filmed roughly a year after she was captured and returned to Dubai, showing her crouched in a corner of what she says is a bathroom. "I'm a hostage and this villa has been converted into a jail," she says in a phone clip.

Dubai's royal family had insisted then that Sheikha Latifa was being "cared for at home".

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE