Newborn baby found.
The government of Qatar on Wednesday expressed “regret” over a decision to pull more than a dozen women from a Qatar Airways flight in Doha and subject them to invasive medical exams after an abandoned newborn was found in an airport bathroom.
Written content from NYT via YRT
But the government defended officials’ actions, saying that it was the first time an infant had been discovered in such a condition at Hamad International Airport, and it called the abandonment earlier this month an “egregious and life-threatening violation of the law.”
“While the aim of the urgently decided search was to prevent the perpetrators of the horrible crime from escaping, the State of Qatar regrets any distress or infringement on the personal freedoms of any traveler caused by this action,” the government said in a statement.
The case triggered shock and outrage in Australia, with a co-director of women’s rights at Human Rights Watch calling the searches sexual assault. The director of Amnesty International Australia, Samantha Klintworth, described the exams “a gross breach of these women’s rights.” Australia’s federal police are investigating.
Scott Morrison, the prime minister of Australia, on Wednesday denounced the Qatari officials’ actions as “appalling,” adding, “As a father of daughters, I could only shudder at the thought that anyone would, Australian or otherwise, would be subjected to that.”
A 31-year-old nurse, who had been on the flight and asked to be identified only by her first name, Jessica, because of the personal nature of the exam, said that she and the other women who had been strip-searched felt relieved that the Qatari government had finally recognized their traumatic experience.
“I guess it’s nice that they’ve finally acknowledged that something has happened cause it was weeks ago now,” she said on Wednesday. “We’re all struggling with what happened,” she added. “At this stage, we are still looking to take it further.” She said the women, who had formed a WhatsApp group to share information and support, were also concerned for the welfare of the infant’s mother.
The statement by the Qatari government revealed new details about the episode.
It said the newborn had been found in a trash can, “concealed in a plastic bag and buried under garbage.” It said the baby had been rescued from “what appeared to be a shocking and appalling attempt to kill her.”
The newborn, a girl, was alive and “safe under medical care in Doha,” the government added. Information about the infant’s parents remain unavailable.
Qatar’s prime minister had directed that “a comprehensive, transparent investigation into the incident be conducted,” the statement said. “The results of the investigation will be shared with our international partners.”
Australia’s foreign minister, Marise Payne, told a Senate committee hearing on Wednesday that 18 Australian women on Flight QR908 had been subjected to the invasive searches. Ms. Payne also said that the plane was one of 10 flights where female passengers were given the exams and that women from other countries had also been searched.
Earlier, she called the searches “a grossly, grossly disturbing, offensive, concerning set of events. It is not something I have ever heard of occurring in my life in any context.”
Women on the flight reported the searches to Australian authorities after arriving at Sydney on Oct. 3, according to The Guardian, and one woman on the plane, an employee of the Foreign Affairs Department, emailed the department that night.
Kim Mills, a passenger in her 60s, told the newspaper that she had been the “luckiest one” among the women taken off the Qatar Airways flight because her age. She recalled seeing a younger woman coming out of an ambulance “crying and distraught.”
The episode has highlighted the treatment of women in Qatar, where sex, pregnancy and childbirth outside of marriage are criminalized. Women accused of such crimes, even if their pregnancy resulted from rape, could face arrest or imprisonment.
The episode also raised questions about whether foreign women traveling through the airport in Qatar could legally be subject to invasive and potentially nonconsensual procedures, experts said. In 2016, a Dutch woman who had reported being drugged and raped was convicted of adultery and handed a suspended sentence, along with fines. Read more from YRT
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