Sarah and Eugenie: Documentary on Turkish Orphanages - November 2008


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Charlotte you won´t give up will you. Saint Sarah it is. You´ve won, she did all the good in the world, the next Mother Theresa. Sorry, I don´t know whether she read your posts even though she may be able to use internet in the intervals of her "do gooding" but when she does she and her daughters will be most encouraged and we can expect some more surprise visits sanctioned by the FO. BRF.
If you are lucky she might decide to visit Australia and stay there.
 
Menarue said:
Charlotte you won´t give up will you. Saint Sarah it is. You´ve won, she did all the good in the world, the next Mother Theresa. Sorry, I don´t know whether she read your posts even though she may be able to use internet in the intervals of her "do gooding" but when she does she and her daughters will be most encouraged and we can expect some more surprise visits sanctioned by the FO. BRF.
If you are lucky she might decide to visit Australia and stay there.
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Why should I or anyone else with a diverse view be silenced? Why the "you won't give up will you?" question. I have a different view and what I consider valid rebuttals to the views put forward, accept that not everyone has the view that Sarah is the worst person on earth or what she and the princesses did is the downfall of the monarchy. I don't think the criticism dished out to Sarah in this case was just, apparently it appears it's acceptable to condemn her and villify her, but not to put forward valid arguments in support of what she did. It's not as simplistic as believing in a St Sarah, I'm not a twitty teen, but rather looking at an issue beyond what is fed to you by the tabloid media and the view they wish to put forward.


FYI her sister lives in Australia so she visits on a regular basis!
 
Charlotte1 said:
The visits were labelled as private so therefore there was no statement detailing what they were doing, it was a private visit! We don't get detailed statements when they make private visits to the US to visit their mother or when they go on holiday or when William or Harry disappear into Africa. Eugenie wiping a tear in her eye ( never heard of waterproof mascara or eyeliner?) was from the visit to the institution in Istanbul, they weren't undercover there.
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First of all: I think it is important to help those poor children but I think also that you should do it without violating laws and the usage of deception in order to get even more shocking pictures. I have no way of knowing if it is true what the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet claims, but they write that the orphanage was so overcrowded at the moment because they do renovations in other parts and had no other possibility to care for the patients of these units. That the TV-team was informed about this reason and has been asked to wait till the work is done to come and film.
Okay, that's their side of the story.

Private visit? They went there to work for and bring publicity to a political magazine on TV, how can this considered to be a private task? Each country has its own rules for media conduct and I'm not sure the Turkish media laws allow these kind of scoops. While it is okay to do that for plain Mrs. Sarah Windsor, it is IMHO not correct for TRH, princesses of the Blood Royal.

AFAI understood all visits were undercover insofar as the people working in the portrayed institutions were not aware that they were to become part in a TV-documentary. I find it laughable that someone like Sarah, who complains all the time about the intrusion of the media into her and her daughters' life does exactly that same to others. Obviously she is of the opinion that the end justifies the means, as long as she is the one to set the rules.

Sorry, I don't buy into her act of selflessness. The title of the show tells me all: "Duchess and daughters - their secret mission" is as attention grabbing as "The Duchess in Hull" was. Sarah is trying to reestablishing herself as no only "a" "Duchess" but "The Duchess" in the British public and she uses her daughters to get more attention. Just like she used Beatrice as "actress" in the film about Victoria she worked for.
 
Charlotte1 said:
How can nothing have changed if there are now 200 group homes ( Chris Rogers article) where previously there were none!? Yes there are still insitutions in Romania where the standard is bellow par, but before all children who were orphaned and abandoned due to disabilities were in institutions, now at least some have a better chance of a life ( Foreign Correspondent report on ABC TV)
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I don't really know how to make it any simpler, I repeat again, this time in red - Rumania was one of the countries featured and it clearly showed that in many of the institutions, nothing has changed. While we saw one small project, the minister stated more than once, that although they have been able to help place some of the children into family sized units, they were far from achieving the goals they had agreed to with the EU before acceptance:whistling:
Well the internet is a wonderful thing and I too can read UK online papers, each and everyone that I have read, including the trashy ones mentions the institutions, and then the controversy.
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On that we will have to disagree,even the online papers have led with the story of the controversy, apart from The Mail on this occasion.
Public exposure brings about change and attention is focused on a problem, we live in a visual age. Official bodies are susceptible to pressure from public opinion and lobby groups, the more people aware of issues the more they lobby official bodies to act. ( Don't quite understand what I have failed to provide)
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No public exposure doesn't bring about change, no matter how 'visual' the age, otherwise the problems in Darfur, etc would have been solved years ago!:rolleyes:
You stated that Charles had been involved in similar controversy, I asked for examples of any deceit or duplicity connected to any visit he has made, I don't recall him visiting Nepal or Hong Kong whilst deceiving (by omission, anyone), if you have an example of him doing so, I am sure we would all enjoy reading about it and comparing notes. - therefore you have been unable to provide any examples of such a deceit.
The visits were labelled as private so therefore there was no statement detailing what they were doing, it was a private visit!
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Again, you stated
The FO have to provide security for B & E, the security officers do a reconnaissance for any security threat to where the princesses are going so they knew exactly where the princesses were going as they had done a security assessment prior. They were aware of the camera crew and knew the princesses were visiting institutions as they were had to do the security assessment.
Also the princesses didn’t do the undercover bit. From Chris Rogers article, about the institution where Sarah wore a wig
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So clearly they didn't tell the whole story when mentioning to the FO or BP this 'private' trip, they didn't do a recce and it was not approved beforehand.
Eugenie wiping a tear in her eye ( never heard of waterproof mascara or eyeliner?) was from the visit to the institution in Istanbul, they weren't undercover there. Different place,
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I suggest you watch the programme, especially the piece where Sarah, Eugenie & the reporter decided the staff were getting suspicious and they ought to leave.
In Istanbul, she and Eugenie, the youngest sister, visited homes in the guise of potential donors
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I have never seen waterproof mascara stand up to such 'upset', let alone eye liner, but whether I have heard of it, seen it, use it, wasn't actually put up for debate. :rolleyes:
Ken Wharfe's book has details of procedure when royals travel,
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I'm sure it has, but it seems to be out of touch, Many nightclubs do have private rooms but as has been seen, William and Harry do not always use them. I wonder how many examples of 'private' trips, undercover reporting he has actually been involved in!:whistling:
Refer to previous comment about the manipulation of editors to provide the view they want.
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Again you seem to have missed a section of my post when reading it, from listening to ordinary British people, manipulation by the moderators/editors aside, that is not so easy to brush aside
 
Charlotte1 said:
W but rather looking at an issue beyond what is fed to you by the tabloid media and the view they wish to put forward.
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And yet, you haven't seen the programme and therefore are 100% reliant on what the tabloid media are feeding you!
 
It appears that certain posters here can't stand to see any positive coverage of the Duchess at all (I have noticed that those posters seem to be the same ones who constantly attack the late Princess of Wales). I say that she was trying to help these children by exposing the conditions at the orphanage. Why not cut her a little slack for 5 minutes and give her a little credit? Would that be fatal?
 
Scooter perhaps you would like to name these people you have noticed. I suggest you read the posts carefully, no one said it wasn´t a good idea to expose bad conditions at an orphanage, what was bad was doing it in an underhand way, giving the idea that they would be donating money to these orphanages, what a let down for the people working there when they reaslised they were being used politically and no money coming in to help them better their conditions.
Also the Duchess didn´t want to be a Duchess, she wanted out but she just doesn´t seem to be able to stop using the BRF for her ends, whatever they are. She took her daughters, who are British Princesses, with her and to anyone who can read it will be obvious that she took them without informing the people she should have informed before doing so and the reason why she was taking them.
Diana Princess of Wales, loved attention, that is not putting her down, it is stating a fact, she did everything possible to compete with her own husband and she wasn´t above using her boys for a photo opportunity too. She is dead and gone, I will never understand why she wasn´t wearing a seatbelt but that is too late to even think about now. She has gone, she is dead RIP. No one wants to put her down, that is in your imagination, it is just that she wasn´t the saint that many people think she was. That is not a crime, not many people are saintly. What I object to now is the
gradual edging towards the title of the "People´s Duchess" that Sarah seems to aiming for.
I hope on her next trip to Australia she stays longer with her sister.
 
scooter said:
It appears that certain posters here can't stand to see any positive coverage of the Duchess at all (I have noticed that those posters seem to be the same ones who constantly attack.......Why not cut her a little slack for 5 minutes and give her a little credit? Would that be fatal?
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Have you seen the programme? :ermm:
You constantly attack 'certain posters', is that different then?:whistling:
It would be a stretch of the imagination to call it positive coverage for Sarah!:whistling:
Give her credit for what exactly, failing to mention the reason behind her private visit, encouraging her daughters to be economical with the truth, breaking the laws of the land she is visiting, or do we mean investigating, deceit, giving false hope, the list goes on but I would like to be clear what we are supposed to give her credit for. Neither she nor her daughters had any need to be visibly involved in this programme, ITV would have shown it without their involvement.
 
Good for them to tackle such an important subject.
 
The problem was that, because Sarah took Beatrice and Eugenie along, it became an international diplomatic incident involving the Royal Family. Had Sarah gone by herself, it would have had the same impact on the world's conscience, but it wouldn't have involved the RF--which ultimately involves the Queen.

agogo said:
Good for them to tackle such an important subject.
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Eugenie and Bea may have chosen to come a long, but I personally don't think the offer for them to go should ever have existed.
 
muriel said:
BBC News - Duchess of York charged by Turkey over orphans film

Duchess of York charged by Turkey over orphans film


A court in Turkey has brought charges against the Duchess of York for illegally filming orphans in the country for a television documentary.
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I take it that the "violating privacy" element of the charge relates to violating the privacy of the Turkish authorities in their presumed right to keep such a shameful secret away from public knowledge and not violating the privacy of the children themselves? I should have thought that the authorities would have concentrated on dealing with the violation of the children's human rights.
 
I don't suppose that she'll ever actually face trial. Does the UK have an extradition treaty with Turkey? If not, all she has to do is not step foot in Turkey again. I wonder whether anything has improved for Turkey's orphans since their conditions have been exposed?
 
Twenty-two years does seem extreme for invading someone's privacy.


Lenora said:
I am not fan of Sarah at all and usually her actions were very wrong, she did many scandalous things, but this accusation,I do believe, is stupid, she didn't do anything dangerous to risk prison for so many years.
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Everyone visiting a foreign country must be aware that each country has its own laws and penalties for violating those laws. She must have known something was amiss with what she was doing since it was not exactly done openly.
I doubt anything will come of this unless on one of her jaunts around the Med a plane or a yacht she was on happens to land in Turkish territory. Lucky for her Turkey has not yet been admitted to the EU, but there is an extradition treaty with Turkey. She may want to rent a copy of Midnight Express to see the inside of a Turkish prison.
 
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Agreed, and no country wants to be embarrassed. One wonders how Sarah is receiving this news.


NGalitzine said:
Everyone visiting a foreign country must be aware that each country has its own laws and penalties for violating those laws. She must have known something was amiss with what she was doing since it was not exactly done openly.
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This publicity might bring some much needed GOOD attention to the cause Sarah supports and condemnation from International Human Rights agencies.
Of course Sarah would do well not to try and hit a spa in Turkey for rest adn relaxation. . . .:whistling:
 
Hmmm, we know she likes freebies & travel and it would be 22 years without worry about food, clothes or shelter in an exotic location.
 
The Telegraph is reporting that Sarah has been charged & may be tried 'in absentia' in Turkey for 'violating children's privacy' in connection with her and/or ITV's documentary about conditions in Turkish orphanages. Apparently she could face 20 years if convicted.

I apologize for being unable to provide a 'link' to the article, but I know the forum is specific as to how they want links done & unfortunately, I don't know how to provide an acceptable link. Sorry! I'm hoping (and am sure) that a more experienced member will search for & provide a link to the article.
 
That would be the ideal outcome. In fact, Turkey might be "shooting itself in the foot" by charging Sarah. If Turkey wants to be seen as modern and Westward-looking, it seems counter-productive to prosecute someone for publicizing something as horrifying as that orphanage. Now people are thinking about Sarah's documentary again, and does Turkey really want that?


Russophile said:
This publicity might bring some much needed GOOD attention to the cause Sarah supports and condemnation from International Human Rights agencies.
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IMHO Sarah is never going to be extradited to Turkey...she is the mother of the Queen's grandchildren and in the UK's opinion, she should be applauded, not jailed. It's the Turkish officials who have allowed this condition that should be jailed.

OTOH, this is good publicity for Sarah in reminding people of the good that she has done because for all her faults, she has done much good in her life.
 
Poor kid. :sad: She can't win for losing. And IMO its no joke to have this threat happen. A bit unnerving. Crazy people out there.
 
Fortunately the Turkish authorities did not also cite Princess Eugenie since her mother unwisely involved her in the documentary as well.
 
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Queen of Quitealot said:
The Telegraph is reporting that Sarah has been charged & may be tried 'in absentia' in Turkey for 'violating children's privacy' in connection with her and/or ITV's documentary about conditions in Turkish orphanages. Apparently she could face 20 years if convicted.

I apologize for being unable to provide a 'link' to the article, but I know the forum is specific as to how they want links done & unfortunately, I don't know how to provide an acceptable link. Sorry! I'm hoping (and am sure) that a more experienced member will search for & provide a link to the article.
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Is this the link you're referring to?

Duchess of York charged by Turkish authorities over orphanage film - Telegraph

It looks like Sarah's wearing dark contacts as well as a wig. What puts me off somewhat is that Sarah's documentary is entitled "Duchess and Daughters: Their Secret Mission." Just the title gives me the impression that it's more focused on her rather than the dire conditions she filmed. I think it could have been better titled. And this is just a terrible situation that's unfortunately backfired and I hope this will be resolved without negative publicity, especially on Beatrice. It's a shame that in an effort to expose the bad conditions under which these children are living, the spotlight is back on Sarah.
 
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This might not end well. If Turkey pushes for an extradition the RF will be in for hell in the worst year possible. Any kind of haggling to keep her in the UK will look like favoritism. God knows if this gets heavy Sarah will be out in full force giving interviews.

Ultimately I think this ends with some deal that the RF will probably have a hand in where she can't go back to Turkey. As much noise as they make I doubt that Turkey will actually go all out, not when it further exposes the horrible conditions those children were kept in.

NGalitzine said:
Fortunately the Turkish authorities did not also cite Princess Beatrice since her mother unwisely involved her in the documentary as well.
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Eugenie not Beatrice. I think she might have still been under 18, or more specifically the Turks aren't trying to piss off the Royal Family. Eugenie's involvement will be seen as Sarah's responsibility even if she had already turned 18.
 
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According to the article she cannot be handed over to Turkey because the offence is not punishable in the UK. The story will unfortunately give Sarah another reason to give interviews.
 
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