The Free Latifa campaign has featured in Spears Magazine, Europe’s leading wealth management authority. The article “The most feared divorce lawyer in Britain” featured the leading UK divorce lawyer Baroness Fiona Shackleton and her client Princess Haya of Jordan, the stepmother of Princess Latifa.

FreeLatifa campaign co-founder, Human Rights lawyer David Haigh was interviewed by Spears Magazines Edwin Smith on his work for Princess Latifa and the assistance given by himself and Tiina Jauhiainen to Princess Haya’s legal team

You can read the full article here:

https://www.spearswms.com/fiona-shackleton-divorce-lawyer-britain/

The founders and leading activists of the Free Latifa campaign have escalated legal action against Radha Stirling of Detained in Dubai, alleging harassment, defamation and cybercrime.

Following comments last week by Radha Stirling relating to a Dubai Civil Court financial judgement involving David Haigh, a public statement was issued by Mr Haigh over the weekend setting out the background to his own legal action against Radha Stirling, together with information on her partner Shahid Bolsen, and their organisation, Detained in Dubai. Now Tiina Jauhiainen, Co-Founder of the Free Latifa campaign, has issued her own statement in relation to Radha Stirling and Detained in Dubai:

“Since I decided to part ways with Radha Stirling and Detained in Dubai in January 2019, I have been subjected to a vicious and vindictive campaign of harassment, abuse and defamation of the worst and most upsetting kind. Disappointingly, it came from a woman whom I thought I could trust and who claimed to be a human rights advocate and even a lawyer. Since our association ended, she appears to have felt the need to make up story after story about me and even publish on Twitter copies of my personal information”

“I sat quietly for over a year as I didn’t want anything to get in the way of our campaign to Free Latifa, even though it was often very hard to ignore Radha Stirling’s blatantly unfair and untrue statements. But then earlier this year I appointed leading litigation law firm Rosenblatt and started legal action in relation to various matters including grave breaches of my confidential information and personal data by Ms Stirling and Detained in Dubai. Her response was to publish my Data Protection Request on Twitter, late at night, even though it was later deleted”

“The list of her unfounded and offensive allegations continues to grow and change almost daily as Ms Stirling seems to wish to reinvent history. Including suggesting I was paid $15,000 a month by Latifa; Ms Stirling’s claim of having saved my life; Ms Stirling’s claim that “Dubai has cited Tiina’s financial gain as evidence that Latifa was manipulated and conveyed this to Mary Robinson during her visit.”[1]; Ms Stirling’s partaking in a self-published book that called me a witch and worse (it has since been pulled); and several other things, many of which have been repeated on social media by ‘trolls’ whom I believe are instructed Ms Stirling. Despite countless requests from myself and also from my solicitors to Radha Stirling to remove such false statements, she continually refuses to do so”

“One of the final straws for me came last year, when David Haigh managed to recruit the high-profile American lawyer Lisa Bloom to help with the campaign to free Latifa and act on mine and Latifa’s behalf, only for her to walk away after she suffered several days of abuse from Ms Stirling’s accounts, including one in the name of Latifa (controlled by an employee of Detained in Dubai) that she has no right to run because she has no authority to speak on Latifa’s behalf”

“I seek no conflict with fellow campaigners against injustice, but I have now concluded that Radha Stirling no longer deserves to be considered a campaigner against injustice.”

Haigh International Justice and the Free Latifa campaign are ramping up the pressure on the ruler of Dubai following last week’s dramatic court judgment in London, with the princess’s legal team calling on the United Nations to “urgently intervene” to ensure her safety.

Princess Latifa is still held captive by her father in Dubai, but her high-powered legal team based in London has filed a 76-page submission to the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID).

The submission concludes, “Given the heightened and substantiated endangerment of Princess Latifa, we request the WGEID urgently intervene to guarantee Princess Latifa’s safety and welfare and to ensure that she is released immediately from being detained unlawfully in the UAE by the UAE authorities.”

The ruling by Sir Andrew McFarlane at England’s High Court included the findings that Latifa was kidnapped in 2018 and her father, the ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, was not “open or honest” when trying to assure the world that Latifa was safe in his care.

Tiina Jauhiainen, the best friend of Latifa, and David Haigh, a human rights lawyer appointed by Princess Latifa and the co-founder of the Free Latifa campaign, together with Latifa’s wider legal team met with the WGEID at their 120^th session in Geneva recently. The session saw Jauhiainen and Haigh give material new evidence to the working group relating to Latifa and her stepmothers Princess Haya and Sheikha Randa Al Banna.

Following the Geneva meeting, Latifa’s legal team, headed by leading international human rights lawyers Alun Jones QC and Rodney Dixon QC, filed a 76-page submission to WGEID and other UN agencies calling for the urgent intervention of the UN.

The WGEID was already investigating the legality of the storming of a US-registered yacht in the Indian Ocean on 4 March 2018 in which Emirati and Indian security forces captured Latifa and five other people, and forcibly took them back to Dubai. The other five on board were released, but Latifa has been held captive by her father, the ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, ever since.

After two years investigating the UAE’s treatment of Latifa – through a series of hearings to which Latifa’s lawyers and representatives of the Free Latifa campaign have contributed at every stage – the WGEID was close to ruling on the case. However, following the recent judgment at the family division of the British High Court in London, Jones and Dixon are asking the UN to consider evidence from the London hearing, which warrants that:

• the WGEID’s investigation be given an urgent status
• the UN promptly require the UAE authorities immediately to provide precise details of Latifa’s whereabouts
• the UN promptly direct the UAE authorities to provide concrete and genuine guarantees for Latifa’s safety and welfare, including by providing immediate access to her, wherever she is held
• all necessary steps are urgently initiated for the UN to intervene and protect Latifa from all violations of her human rights, in particular, to direct that she is released immediately by the UAE authorities from her captivity.

The submission also calls for the UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to be part of the UN investigation alongside the WGEID.

Alun Jones said “We welcome the findings of Sir Andrew McFarlane relating to Princess Latifa. The judgment reflects the tireless work of Tiina Jauhiainen and David Haigh, whose efforts to free Princess Latifa and to assist Princess Haya been recognized by the High Court.

“It is a matter of grave concern that now that an English court has found that Princess Latifa and her sister Princess Shamsa have suffered from abduction, mistreatment and arbitrary imprisonment, the UK Government has nothing to say.

Rodney Dixon added “It is most concerning that despite the High Court judgment on 5 March 2020 finding that Princess Latifa had been kidnaped, and worldwide calls for the urgent release of Latifa, she remains in captivity. Her fundamental human rights are being unjustifiably restricted and abused. The international community can no longer stand by. 

“We are petitioning the UN Working Groups on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances and on Arbitrary Detention and other bodies to get access to her without delay and to ensure that she is released unharmed.

“It is vital more than ever now that the UN should take all necessary action to secure Latifa’s immediate release having been unlawfully held in the UAE for over two years.”

David Haigh said, “The judgment from the High Court in London was emphatic. It’s now crucial that this evidence, which has been tested and proved in one of the most esteemed legal systems in the world, is used to bring about real change, starting with guarantees about Latifa’s safety, and – within the shortest possible time and the right circumstances – her release from captivity.

“The wagons are now circling around the embattled regime in Dubai. In the few days since the London judgment, numerous people have indicated they will distance themselves from the toxic Al-Maktoum dynasty, including the UK’s Queen Elizabeth II. It’s now time for the UN to add its considerable weight to the fight against the human rights abuses being perpetrated by the UAE regime.”

The judge in the London case, Sir Andrew McFarlane, found that Latifa “was plainly desperate to extricate herself from her family and prepared to undertake a dangerous mission in order to do so” and that “there is no ground for doubting that it was indeed Latifa’s settled ambition to escape from Dubai.”

The court also found that the actions of Sheikh Mohammed “demonstrate a consistent course of conduct over two decades where, if he deems it necessary to do so, the father [Sheikh Mohammed] will use the very substantial powers at his disposal to achieve his particular aims” and that Sheikh Mohammed “continues to maintain a regime whereby both of these two young women [Latifa and her sister Shamsa] are deprived of their liberty, albeit within family accommodation in Dubai.”

The court ruled against Sheikh Mohammed in a custody battle he fought with his estranged wife Sheikha Haya over their two children. It found he had not been “open or honest” with the court over its assurances in January 2019 that Latifa was “safe and in the loving care of her family … and never has been arrested or detained.”

Tiina Jauhiainen said “The recent submission is the culmination of two years of dedicated hard work that began whilst I was still detained in the UAE national security jail after I was kidnaped alongside Latifa.

“David had, within hours of the kidnap of Latifa and myself, enlisted the help of the barrister Toby Cadman, who was luckily at the UN working on David’s own UN complaints against the UAE at the time. Within days of the kidnap, a press conference was given at the UN with Toby and David working around the clock to make a 22-page submission to the UN on 30 March 2018 calling for their urgent intervention.

“Since our initial submissions to the UN David and I have attended multiple sessions of the WGEID, most recently in Geneva with Latifa’s barrister Rodney Dixon in September 2019 and February 2020. It is to the UN that we now look to safeguard Latifa’s fundamental  human rights as set down in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, to secure her safety and her freedom.”