silencing and dark realities: Princess Haya's trial and the MENA Region's treatment of women

At the beginning of March this year, the British High Court found Sheikh Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai and vice-president of the UAE, abducted two of his daughters and threatened his now ex-wife, Princess Haya bint Hussein. The details emerged from what first appeared to be a bitter custody battle, but which later revealed a much darker reality. 

Prior to this trial, little was known about the intimate relationship between the pair. Princess Haya — daughter of Jordan’s former King Hussein and half-sister of the current reigning King Abdulla II — is an Oxford graduate and the first woman to become a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN world food programme. She is also a keen equestrian who represented her country in show jumping during the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. This is a bond she shares with the Sheikh, whose well-known love of horses led him to found Godolphin: a prominent Thoroughbred horse-racing stable. Upon marrying the Sheikh in 2004, she became his youngest and most public wife with the pair regularly attending events in the equestrian world such as Royal Ascot. 

Their image as a power couple in the Middle East went a long way towards bolstering Dubai’s image as a modern metropolis of the region; an image that the Sheikh himself created and worked hard to disseminate. However, a closer look at the details which have emerged of the case paint a very different picture. It would be impossible to understand the gravity of the situation without detailing the strife of two of the Sheikh’s daughters from a previous marriage: Princesses Shamsa and Latifa. Both separately attempted to escape the family and life in Dubai and were forcibly returned, after which they vanished from the public eye. 

Of the two, Princess Latifa’s attempt to flee gained much more public interest as she recorded a 40-minute video describing her father’s crimes and his character including harrowing accounts of imprisonment and torture under the Sheikh’s orders. The sisters’ fates, which were once deemed mere allegations, and far-fetched ones at that, were found to be true based on the balance of probabilities — a landmark ruling of its kind. 

The official narrative claims these two princesses were not in fact kidnapped and brought back to Dubai against their will, but rather saved. Allegedly, Princess Haya believed this narrative until she met Princess Latifa, which prompted her to escape to London with her two children where she sought refuge as well as retribution. Another rumour circulating at the time of the trial was the Sheikh’s plan to marry their own young daughter, Jalila, to the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Salman. These speculations prompted Princess Haya to seek protection from marriage order on her daughter’s behalf.  

Unsurprisingly, the Sheikh maintains this is a private family issue which need not be publicly discussed. Throughout the region, the presence of women, as well as their treatment, is often relegated to the private sphere both by law and social custom. Consequently, the public sphere is considered inherently masculine, a testament to which is the fact that very few women hold public positions in office.  

However, the great irony here is the fact that although a modest woman is a private one, once she is considered to have acted out of line, she is hung out to dry in public. Her immodesty is then considered public domain. Evidence of this can be found in the often public campaign of intimidation to which Princess Haya has been subjected. Instances of such intimidation included the Sheikh himself publishing a threatening poem about Princess Haya, accusing her of treachery and betrayal. The Middle Eastern press, too, is littered with charges aimed at the Princess in a thinly veiled attempt to ruin her reputation and high-standing in public opinion. The very fact sheds light on the idea that a woman’s reputation in the region is still considered her greatest currency, with no worse allegation than one of impurity.  

The simultaneous attempt to bring the Princess to her demise and strengthen the Sheikh’s public image as a liberal and modern visionary shows how effective it can be to mask patriarchy under the banner of liberalism. In spite of his attempts to disparage Princess Haya’s word, he also worked hard to stop the court’s findings about him becoming public. Although these appeals were rejected, he has been somewhat successful in that there has been very little coverage following up on the story since. 

Although the repercussions of the court’s findings on the diplomatic relations between the UK and the UAE are yet to be determined, millions of British tourists are likely to continue to flock to the UAE on an annual basis, pumping wealth into their economy, while inadvertently propping up a system that is sure to have many more skeletons in its closet. 

Illustration by Caitlin Duncan.