Home > Newsletter > July 2002

THEN CAME THE HEARINGS

In 1991 a movie, Not Without My Daughter, was badly assaulted by the media for simply telling the truth about Islam. The movie depicted the true story of a woman who made the mistake of visiting Iran with her Muslim husband and her daughter. Once there she lost all her rights. Our government refused to help her leave or to obtain even basic rights for herself or her daughter. Movie reviewer Robert Ebert complained, "No attempt is made - deliberately, I assume - to explain the Muslim point of view, except in rigid sets of commands and rote statements. No Muslim character is painted in a favorable light; the local people who help the heroine are dissidents or outlaws." Others slammed the movie as well because it "offended" Muslims.

The week of June 11th the House Government Reform Committee headed by Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN) held hearings on the condition of Americans kidnapped and held hostage in Saudi Arabia. Woman after woman told the congressional committee how Muslim husbands had taken their children to Saudi Arabia and then refused to allow them to ever be seen by their mothers again, even though the children are American citizens. One mother, Pat Roush, told how her two daughters, Alia and Aisha, were kidnapped by their father after she obtained legal custody of them. The girls begged her by phone to help them get out of Muslim bondage in Saudi Arabia. One daughter was recently forced to marry by her father.

One mother, Monica Stower, managed to make it to the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia with her two children. Our government didn't care. She was kicked out of our Embassy in Riyadh by two Marines into the hands of Saudi officials who then turned the kidnapped children over to their father.

The stories made headlines all over the United States, letting people know the truth about Islam and our "ally" Saudi Arabia.

In an editorial on the 13th of June the Wall Street Journal had this to say about the actions of our State Department in defending Saudi Arabia at the expense of Americans:

"For too long State has let the Saudis hide behind the pretense that they are handcuffed by Saudi law that gives all rights to men, as if that feudal state were some kind of democracy. This tolerance for what amounts to kidnapping is one more example, like funding madrassa schools that teach hatred for America, of the way Saudis treat their supposed ally with contempt."

There was no comment from the White House on the hearings or on editorials in numerous newspapers calling upon the President to intervene on behalf of the kidnapped American citizens in Saudi Arabia.

Children are not the only issue. No woman may leave Saudi Arabia without the permission of a man. Women from Western nations who have gone to Saudi Arabia for jobs as "hostesses" have found out that it is not as easy to leave as it is to get in. Many of these women have vanished while there.