IT IS ALWAYS upsetting to me when I hear stories of foreigners being duped in Saudi Arabia by the legal system. It seems that the cards are always stacked against them, which is a shame really, because the resentment it builds against the Kingdom does far more damage to this country’s reputation than anything else.

A Filipino friend, let’s call him Marvin, recently told me about the ongoing legal battle with his former Saudi employer to recover around four months in salary that was never paid. The legal struggle began more than year ago after Marvin left his former employer and transferred his sponsorship to a new employer.

His old employer still owed him four months in back pay and hinted he would never pay the amount, so Marvin decided to file a case with the labor court in Jeddah. Months went by and nothing happened. Marvin asked the Philippine Consulate for assistance with his case, and a Filipino translator accompanied Marvin to the labor court.

Marvin was informed by the court that he would have to refile his case against his former employer a year after the original filing, or risk having the case thrown out. He agreed and filed his complaint again.

This time he was asked to hand a summons to his ex-employer from the labor court. This was easier said than done, as the employer was always not in his office or at home.

In short, he was doing what many irresponsible employers do well when needed by former employees: Hiding.

In the meantime, it transpired that the former employer had been paying my friend Marvin, when he employed him, only in bits and drabs, never in equal amounts or at regular intervals. This served the former employer well, as this confused Marvin as to how much he had been paid, making it all the more easier for the employer to dupe him.

The final indignity happened this week when Marvin was summoned to the labor court. There a court official produced a document written in Arabic, which stated that Marvin had received all the back pay owed him from his former employer.

On the document was what Marvin called an obviously forged version of his signature.

The official offered him a Faustian bargain: Either accept this forgery and drop the case, or have the document sent to the police. There, writing experts would examine it and decide whether Marvin’s signature was real. If Marvin were found to be lying about his signature, he would face one month in jail!

Needless to say, Marvin being a married man with a son, decided not to gamble with his fate and agreed to drop the case.

I don’t understand what sort of justice this is where one is forced to accept possibly being punished for pointing out an obvious forgery.

Of course, Marvin is not the first nor will he be the last worker who gets a raw deal from the labor courts.

The case of the Al-Bilad newspaper workers who haven’t been paid for the past five months, and that of the Al-Badrah biscuit factory workers who also haven’t been paid for several months, begs the question, what is the Ministry of Labor doing to solve these cases? The ministry should have a special unit to deal with these exceptional cases, where resolutions are fast-tracked through the thick layers of bureaucratic red tape that slows everything down here.

This laissez-faire attitude of officials is woefully inadequate when the free-market system breaks down. Not paying workers their wages on time, or ever at all, is hardly just. And justice delayed is justice denied.

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Are Al-Qaeda prisoners’ rights being violated?

THE PHOTOS released last Saturday by the US Department of Defense showed newly-arrived Al-Qaeda and Taleban prisoners at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, kneeling down in a fenced-in courtyard covered in pebbles, their hands and ankles cuffed, dark goggles on their eyes, masks on their mouths and noses, and earmuffs covering their ears. The caption said that they were being held here temporarily as they were being processed.

To me they looked like torture victims about to be executed with a shot to the head, and this is perhaps what sparked outrage in Arab and European countries at these images. British newspapers were especially offended, asking in blaring headlines whether the United States was really civilized after all.

In Geneva, Switzerland, the International Committee of the Red Cross said that the photos might have broken the Geneva Conventions on the Rights of Prisoners of War by exposing the prisoners to "public curiosity". But I think the US government was in a no-win situation: If it didn’t release photos, critics would accuse it of covering up its treatment of the prisoners, while releasing the pictures brought equal condemnation.

American officials explained that the prisoners were subjected to sensory deprivation for the 24-hour flight from Afghanistan to Cuba, so as to lessen their chances of causing trouble while in transit. And it is a well-known physiological fact that when deprived of so many senses, the human body is incapable of functioning properly. The prisoners once processed in Cuba, no longer wear the mask, earmuffs, goggles, or shackles while inside their cages.

Red Cross officials have been allowed to visit the prisoners, checking their condition and taking letters from them for their families. The prisoners are given three meals a day, have a piece of foam to sleep on, and are given a shower 2-3 times a week. They are also allowed to pray and read the Qur’an. This can hardly be called extreme conditions, but neither can it be called comfortable. This is after all a prison for hardened-fighters, not a country club.

The real issue here is the Bush administration’s game of semantics when it comes to defining what these prisoners should be classified as. President Bush insists that they are not prisoners of war, as they were not caught fighting for a nation, but rather for an organization.

In this case Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network of terror. He also insists that they be tried by special US military courts abroad, where they will have less rights than if they were tried in the United States.

The US government has also not said what will happen to Al-Qaeda prisoners sentenced to a prison term. Where will they serve it?

Surely not at Guantanamo Bay, where holding facilities are adequate for short-term imprisonment but not for example a 25-year jail term. Will the US then build special prisons abroad just to accommodate these prisoners? If so, where? And how will it allow family members of those imprisoned to visit them? Surely it won’t be flying in relatives of prisoners from the Middle East and Britain to visit detainees.

The US should try these Al-Qaeda detainees in US courts that are open to the press. I think the openness of these trials would do more to help US’s cause than trying them in secret. The secrecy will only foster more resentment against Americans around the world, and as the Sept. 11 attacks showed, that’s something America doesn’t need more of!