Qatar accused of ignoring its commitments to asylum agreement
The Yemen female activist known as Hayat was met with a shock after being forced to fly to Djibouti by authorities in Qatar, when she found her abusive husband had flown out with her, despite promises made by Doha, she said in a video published on Twitter.
Hayat had originally been planning on flying to Jordan without her husband, before arriving at the airport to find that the plane would instead be travelling to Djibouti, she explained in the video.
Upon departing from the plane, Hayat found her husband had instead been flown out with her, and that officials from the Yemen embassy were also in attendance. In response, the activist went to the Djiboutian police, refusing to travel anywhere with her abusive spouse, she said.
Qatar signed several agreements with the UN in 2018 on the support refugees. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) specifically mentioned supported displaced Yemenis as a target of these agreements. Hayat’s experience with the Qatari authorities would, however, seem in contravention to these aims, as one Twitter user pointed out.
In September 2018, @QatarAtUN signed the Asylum Agreement.
But it appears that signing this agreement was just a media propaganda stunt. Last night, #Qatari authorities kidnapped activists Hayat & put her life in danger by sending her back to Djibouti w/ her abusive ex-husband. https://t.co/e2D7Domidz— RABYAAH ALTHAIBANI رابعة الذيباني (@rabyaahahmed) August 12, 2020
Doha has come under fire in recent months for its human rights and geopolitical track record.
A report published in June by Amnesty International found that laborers working on the 2022 World Cup stadium had gone months without being paid. The news followed numerous reports of worker deaths related to inadequate working practices.
The country’s political record has also been targeted in a series of audio leaks published throughout the year, which have shown, among other allegations, plans discussing the fall of the Saudi Arabian monarchy.
