Camel jockey civil rights case refiled in Kentucky after Florida dismissal

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:

 

 

Camel jockey civil rights case refiled in Kentucky after Florida dismissal

 

LEXINGTON, Ky.--Plaintiffs including the parents of five

unnamed boys who were allegedly enslaved in Dubai as camel jockeys

filed a class action lawsuit during the second week of September 2007

against Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid al Maktoum, brother of the ruler of

Dubai.

The ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bid Rashid al Maktoum, was in

Lexington, Kentucky, to attend the annual Keeneland September

Yearling Sale, where the family has reportedly paid as much as $3

million for highly regarded thoroughbred horses.

The lawsuit alleges that Sheikh Hamdan was complicit in

enslaving as many as 30,000 children during the past 30 years for use

as camel jockeys--a misnomer, since the children, sometimes as

young as four years of age, are tied to the backs of the racing

camels, and have no ability to control them. Many are thrown and

injured, or even killed.

Foreign visitors including Prince Charles of Britain at one

time were prominent at high-stakes camel races in Dubai and elsewhere

in the oil-rich portions of the Middle East. Camel racing fell into

disrepute, however, after human rights organizations documented

that the jockeys are often bought from poor families in nations

including Bangladesh and Sudan, with the promise that they would be

given good jobs and an education. Rarely is the promise fulfilled.

The lives and fates of the camels, meanwhile, are similar

to those of racehorses: winners live longer. Losers go to

slaughter. Injuries are frequent. Drugging and other chicanery

harmful to the animals is much more often alleged by losing bettors

than proven-- and the political and economic influence of the camel

racing stable owners, in nations with traditionally low regard for

human rights, tends to thwart close policing.

The Kentucky case parallels a 2006 filing against both Sheikh

Hamdan and Sheikh Mohammed in Miami. U.S. federal judge Cecilia

Altonaga on July 30, 2007 ruled that because neither the sheikhs nor

the plaintiffs reside in the U.S., and none of the alleged wrongful

actions occurred in the U.S., the case should not be tried in a U.S.

court.

" Although the new lawsuit does not specifically name anyone

other than Sheikh Hamdan as a defendant, " said Canadian Press, " it

includes other unnamed defendants who are accused of being

accomplices. " The case was filed both in Florida and in Kentucky

under the Alien Tort Statute, an 18th century federal law originally

used against pirates and on behalf of sailors who were impressed into

service against their will by the British Navy.

" The lawsuit had reached the highest levels of the U.S.

government, " Canadian Press said, " with the Emirates leaders

appealing directly to President George W. Bush to intervene. The

U.S. State Department served notice [in the Miami case] that it would

do so, arguing that sovereign immunity protected the two sheiks

from the lawsuit. "

 

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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