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One of the women forcibly strip-searched at Doha Airport says she believes gender is partly behind Qatar Airways’ refusal to apologise for forcing her to undergo invasive examinations on the tarmac.
The woman, who goes by the pseudonym Anna, was onboard a Qatar Airways flight bound for Sydney during the pandemic in October 2020 when she and other female passengers were forced by armed men dressed in black to disembark their flight.
“Anna”, a Sydney victim of a Qatar Airlines strip search after a newborn baby was found abandoned at the airport, is one of a number of women who are suing the airline.Credit: Janie Barrett
They were escorted into ambulances on the tarmac for physical examinations to determine if they had recently given birth. None of the victims gave their consent. Qatari authorities were hunting for the mother of a newborn baby found dumped in a rubbish bin at the airport. Childbirth outside of marriage is illegal in Qatar.
Anna was holding her then five-month-old baby during the search and attempted to explain that the fact she was physically holding her infant meant she could not have just given birth. But her protestations were ignored by the female nurse inside the dark ambulance.
“So I lay down with my son on my chest and she just grabbed my tights and my underwear simultaneously and ripped them down,” she recalled of the incident, during an interview over Zoom, from Bondi in Sydney, where she lives.
“I was shaking, holding my son and not knowing what she was going to do.
Anna, at her home in Sydney’s east, believes her gender is part of the reason Qatar Airways has not apologised.Credit: Janie Barrett
“There were other women coming, and they were crying.”
Anna, now aged 39, is one of five women suing the airline, the airport operator and the airport authority.
Their identities are suppressed by the courts. Their case comes before the Federal Court again on Wednesday. The matter has had more than 25 hearing dates so far.
Qatar Airways claims to have immunity as a sovereign and is trying to have the case struck out altogether.
While Qatar’s foreign minister has apologised to the Australian government and said the episode would never be repeated, Anna said their refusal to say sorry in person and settle any sort of compensation showed their assurances could not be trusted.
“I’ve found it extremely insulting the way they’ve been conducting themselves through this entire lawsuit, denying, delaying,” she said.
“This is the most basic human thing that you could have done if you do someone that wrong, is to reach out personally and say ‘oh my God, I’m so sorry this happened’, but nothing.”
She said she believed Qatar Airways feared further litigation from the hundreds of other female passengers travelling through Doha that day, but that gender was also a factor.
“I think they don’t want to open the floodgates to more lawsuits to start with,” she said.
“I do believe gender has something to do with it, five women, how dare we?”
It is the first time the case has come before the courts under the airline’s new chief executive, Badr Mohammed Al-Meer, who took over last month from Akbar Al Baker, who had helmed the company for 26 years.
Anna said it was an opportunity for the new CEO to make a break with the past and settle the matter once and for all.
“Apologise, take responsibility, just do better. Apologising is the easiest thing you could have done, and you didn’t, but you now have this in your hands, you can change that.”
Qatar Airways said through a spokeswoman that it declined to comment.
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