Supporters of a missing women’s rights campaigner in Qatar fear she is being held against her will after she returned to the country from exile in Britain.
23-year-old Noof al Maadeed vanished on October 13, after she spoke out about being in danger and receiving death threats from her abusive family members.
Campaigners believe that she is being held hostage by the Qatari government.
Rothna Begum, from Human Rights Watch, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The authorities have suggested she is safe and not with her family and that she’s gone silent for her “own protection” but we are worried she is being held against her will with no access to the outside world in a form of detention.’
Noof al-Maadeed (pictured), 23 years old, vanished October 13, after she spoke out about being in danger and receiving death threats from her abusive family members.
Noof has been a prolific campaigner against Qatar’s male guardianship system in which women are dependent on men for permission to marry, travel abroad, pursue higher education and access reproductive healthcare.
Qatar has made it illegal for under-25s to travel overseas without a male chaperone.
But in 2019, then aged 21, Noof took her father’s phone and used a government app to process an exit permit before fleeing her home and taking a flight.
Noof has been a prolific campaigner against Qatar’s male guardianship system in which women are dependent on men for permission to marry, travel abroad, pursue higher education and access reproductive healthcare
Noof lived in Cardiff, but she canceled her asylum seeker application. She returned to Qatar last Month after receiving assurances by the authorities that she would be safe.
Ms Begum said: ‘She is not somebody who’d switch off and not tell a single person how she is doing. She could be in forced detention.’