Qatar Airways executive says invasive gynecological examinations of passengers won't be repeated

alphacyberranger@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 223 points –
Qatar Airways executive says invasive gynecological examinations of passengers won't be repeated
apnews.com
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The five Australian women, whose names are suppressed by a court gag order, say they were taken off the flight to Sydney at Doha at gunpoint by guards and were searched without consent.

What the actual fuck

But they said they were cool for tourists, they even were chosen for world coup.

Fuck FIFA. I boycotted all of that event. I know it made zero difference since plenty of other people didn't give a shit, but what can you do...

Just a reminder that the middle East is a fucked up part of the world and no one should ever go there.

Not discounting how awful this incident is, but WTF are you on about? Do you think this is somehow representative of your average journey to a Middle Eastern country? Which one are you even talking about? There are a dozen different countries in the Middle East with different cultures and political climates.

Name one country in the middle East that doesn't have deliberately sexist laws and or bonded labour /slavery. I'll wait.

Not the OP here, and I do not disagree with you in general, but I feel that Kazakhstan seems a cool place, the other Turkish countries seem "visitable" as well. The big problem is all these countries with sharia law or with a big influence of sharia defenders, and it is not only Middle East but a lot of saarian countries too.

Which one do you recommend?

To avoid? As a middle eastern living in middle east: all of them plus every other country in 2000km vicinity.

Yeah I worked with a couple of Syrians a while back and that was pretty much how they felt.

So basically they found an abandoned newborn baby in an airport trashcan, and decided they needed to check the vaginal areas of all the women, to see which woman had recently given birth?!? Have they never heard of stretch marks? What the actual fuck.

And yet here we are in the US banning abortions and heading down the same road. Give women options if they don't want to carry a pregnancy to term and you won't have horrific acts like neonate abandonment.

You’ll notice a commonality between the assholes in Qatar, and the assholes here.

Ultra conservative religion.

In any case, it sounds like Qatar’s sportswashing worked, they got tourists.

And you'll notice a direct correlation between ultra conservative religion and extreme poverty.

And you'll notice a direct correlation between ultra conservative religion and poor education.

I’m not sure if your last sentence was an aside or in reference to this case. But I just thought I would mention in case it was the latter; Qatar is a necessary transfer airport to Australia from Europe and the UK if you are travelling with Qatar Airlines (which is often one of the cheaper fares available on the very expensive journey) or I believe if you book via Quantas, Qatar Airlines is one of their partner companies that you could end up on.

It was in reference- didn’t know that (I read enough to get outraged, I guess.)

It’s still awful;

Uh so just an fyi, stretch marks alone aren’t an indicator of pregnancy. There are plenty of women out there that either don’t have stretch marks and have been pregnant, or do have stretch marks and have never been pregnant. I say this as someone who is pregnant with their 3rd child and doesn’t have stretch marks.

I'm saying this as a man who's had zero children and has stretch marks.

You should consider pregnancy. As a man, it's brought me nothing but joy to carry a new life into this world in my body.

But only a few weeks ago one of their arguments was that the airline shouldn't be punished for the actions of the state.

Now they are happy to provide assurances on the state's behalf?

What the fuck

in 2020 in which female passengers were subjected to invasive gynecological examinations.

authorities were looking for the mother of a newborn baby found abandoned in a Hamad International Airport trash can

they were taken off the flight to Sydney at Doha at gunpoint by guards and were searched without consent.

Did I wake up 2,000 years ago or something? Am I still on earth?

Qatar was “surprised and shocked” that Australia had rejected without explanation its application for additional services to Sydney

Woooow. I literally don't know what to say.

Was there ever a lawsuit for this?

They usually end like this: "it was an accident, the guy tripped over something and fell onto/into the vagina". Sounds like a bad joke but unfortunately it's not.

Try opening the article.

The Doha-based executive declined to detail the incident because five women are suing the airline in Australian Federal Court.

This is the best summary I could come up with:


CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A senior Qatar Airways executive told an Australian Senate inquiry on Wednesday there would be no repeat of an incident at Doha’s international airport in 2020 in which female passengers were subjected to invasive gynecological examinations.

They wrote to Catherine King through their lawyer in June urging that Qatar Airways not be allowed to double its number of Australian services from the current 28 flights per week.

“When you are considering Qatar Airways’ bid for extra landing rights, we beg you to consider its insensitive and irresponsible treatment of us and its failure to ensure the safety and dignity of its passengers,” they said.

Qatar Senior Vice President Fathi Atti told the inquiry that the airline learned of the decision through the news media on July 10 and did not receive official notification from the Australian government until 10 days later.

The committee is also examining whether Australian flag carrier Qantas Airways influenced the government’s decision in order to reduce competition and keep air fares high.

Vanessa Hudson, who became Qantas chef executive this month, told the committee the airline made a submission to the government last October saying that the international aviation market needed to fully recover from the pandemic before Qatar Airways was given more Australian services.


The original article contains 558 words, the summary contains 213 words. Saved 62%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Or maybe there’s a general lack of good sense and decency that could lead to different, but equally hideous, lapses of judgement.

They treat all women like that, regardless of nationality. They are used to absolute power and it never crossed their minds that other countries won't like what they did. After all, they think "it's only women".