JEDDAH, 4 October — Saudi citizens have started to feel persecuted amid a perceived rise in anti-Arab sentiments in the United States during the hunt for those behind last month’s terrorist attacks.
Scores of Saudis have returned from the United States where more than 4,000 live, most of them students. Returnees include 24 members of the Binladen family.
“I’m dead worried about my two boys studying in America and we are seriously thinking of bringing them back home,” a businessmen said.
Newspapers have lamented the large number of Saudis being questioned by the FBI and a rash of hate crimes in the United States against people of Middle East origin.
“The Kingdom feels that groundless accusations against a number of its citizens derive from malicious intentions,” Al-Nadwah said in an editorial yesterday.
“The harassment of innocent Saudis, Arabs and Muslims is unacceptable as are baseless accusations...the backlash against Arabs or Muslims will not serve the interests of anyone except those who want to ruin good relations between nations.”
Saudi Arabia has strongly condemned the attack and pledged support for the US-led coalition to fight against “terrorism”. But government leaders and newspapers have deplored what they see as Western attempts to link terrorism to Islam.
They have also been quick to point out cases of mistaken identity among Saudi citizens, formally named as suspects in the hijacked airliner attacks on New York and Washington, which left nearly 6,000 people dead or missing.
Many of the 19 alleged hijackers named by the FBI are Saudi citizens.
“There is no single rational explanation or justification for the Western media campaign against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Okaz said in an editorial.
“These false media campaigns have never and will never stain the Kingdom’s clean record which is dedicated to peace, stability, justice and co-existence.”
Ordinary Saudis are angered by reports of innocent Saudis being hauled in for questioning in the United States.
Government officials find it hard to accept that Saudis may have been involved. “I think we will find that few Saudis were involved. We think there are a lot of falsified documents,” a senior official said.
Many people are also skeptical that Osama Bin Laden masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks. “While no one doubts that Bin Laden encourages this type of attack, few believe that he personally planned the event, and many suspect he is being singled out as a convenient scapegoat for the Americans,” a Gulf official said.
Interior Minister Prince Naif pledged on Tuesday to protect the Binladen family.
“They have full rights and have responsibilities like all other Saudis and they should not be blamed for deviation in the behavior of one of them. We will not accept that,” he said.
Five of Osama’s children currently live as normal citizens in Saudi Arabia, the terror suspect’s brother said in comments published yesterday.
Yahya Binladen told Okaz newspaper that the five had Saudi citizenship and the eldest, in his 20s, was employed. The authorities were treating them like other Saudi citizens, he said.
