Posted on 06/19/2003 11:45:45 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
On the eve of her 24th birthday, Sarah Saga, the courageous, young woman who has sought sanctuary inside the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for the past five days, was brought face-to-face with members of the Saudi government inside her living quarters. She was not given the choice of refusing these uninvited guests, but told by U.S. consular officers that she must comply with Saudi demands for a meeting.
As Sarah and her two young children huddled in a corner of the room, three Saudi men from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs approached her. She had grown up in a household with an abusive Saudi father who had beaten her on a regular basis, threatened her with a knife, and locked her up in a room for two years as revealed to me in an audiotaped interview a few weeks ago. Now, her worst nightmare was coming true – Saudi men again intimating her and scaring her right inside the U.S. Consulate and in her own bedroom.
One of them said, "Let us tell you what your problem is – but your option is only one." The nervous, frightened woman signed the document placed before her and then the men left. The arrangements had been made. Sarah was to be placed on a commercial airliner at 2 a.m. this morning and her children were to be given to relatives. The Saudis wanted to end this "hostage situation" and get back to their PR campaign in the U.S.
But Sarah has decided that she won't go. "I will never leave my children here to suffer the same horrible life that I had to endure," she tells a Fox News audience. She has locked herself inside her room and keeps her little ones close by.
A couple of days ago, Sarah told her mom that she had a piece of chocolate cake at the consulate cafeteria. "I told Sarah we'll have a big chocolate cake for her birthday when she comes home. That was her favorite."
Birthdays aren't celebrated in Saudi Arabia. They consider it a Western holiday. When I met my daughters in a hotel room in Riyadh eight years ago, Aisha didn't even know her correct age. I brought Alia a "Sweet Sixteen" birthday card as a present, but she was perplexed by it all.
This will be the first birthday in eighteen years that Sarah Saga will celebrate. Although she may be alone in a room in the U.S. Consulate with danger all around her, she can have her chocolate cake with her kids and we can each light one candle for Sarah and pray for her safe return.
Fox News has posted addresses of U.S. officials that can be contacted to express support for Saga in her quest for freedom for both herself and her children.
But if they are under Saudi law considered Saudi citizens? Can the US invade Saudi and take out what to Saudis are their citizens?
Good advice. Child custody battles aren't a duty of the American government, not many of us want to send our own sons and daughters into danger or war over these matters or see Arabs killed on Arab soil. Janet Reno actually did get the federal government involved in a couple of child custody battles and it became a big mistake with children being burned up.
and seeing how she herself had been kidnapped and kept in Saudi by her bio father....one can see how she doesn't want that sort of life for HER children....
I personally don't think middle eastern men are capable of loving dtrs or females in general, so any female children should be allowed to go no matter what....
maybe that's the ticket....all male children of half Saudi children can stay, but all females allowed to leave with their mothers.....since females are not valued .....there shouldn't be any opposition.....
I suppose if this was an American father wanting to take his children back from Saudi under the same circumstances you would be all in favor....
besides...you keep forgetting....she was kidnapped, kept in Saudi, forced to become Islamic, and arranged to be married off.....where does this "choice" come from?
Germany is as bad...
we have a case here where the ex decided to take his "boys" to Germany with him, where he married a German woman....he rarely allows the boys to talk with their real mother....
the guy was arrested here when he came but soon made it out of jail for some reason, because our govt is loathe to enforce child custody especially since the "boys" were in Germany and there was no legal way to bring them back...
the father used the excuse to take "his boys" because he claimed mom was a bad mother.(don't they all claim that) except it did't really ring true, since he left one younger son to stay with the real mom.....guess he wasn't too worried after all ...
imagine being swiped away from both your mom, your little brother, all the relatives that you have ever known to go live in Germany?.......
someday, there will be hell to pay for this action....
Show me where I posted that ---you MUST have be confused with someone else.
Both parents have rights in a child custody dispute. Obviously when people choose to marry citizens of other countries, things become a little more involved because the non-US-citizen is still protected by their own laws and their own government ---- would you like to see the Saudi government sending soldiers to kill Americans on US soil who they believed were holding a Saudi child? Do we want to see Americans going over to Saudi Arabia and killing Saudis trying to hold onto what they believe is their Saudi citizen child?
I remember a few times when the US federal government did get involved in child custody disputes. A US senator decided to get involved in one at Jonestown ---those people were living on foreign soil, it ended up a disaster. Waco was in part a child custody dispute, the children were burned by Janet Reno, then she got involved in the custody dispute over Elian...another disaster. I guess we should try it again, send our federal agents into Saudi and "rescue" all who claim to be US citizens even if we have to kill their fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles who may not easily let them go.
There's gratitude for ya. Maybe since you're unwilling to maintain this boon God has bestowed upon you, you should stop thanking him so profusely? He probably finds it annoying.
Yeah, right.
But it's too bad for the snatched kids, who in many cases are raised as Americans and then yanked into a barbaric, pre-medieval culture.
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