Dear Mr. Ambassador, I write to you in response to appeals by thousands of people from this country who have been waiting patiently outside your embassy and consulates expecting an answer, it does not matter even if it is a no, to their requests for entry visas to your country.
I think it is our right to expect that you treat us with transparency and clarity. We would also expect you to be the advocate of good relations between our two peoples. We refuse to see the US-Saudi relations take such a turn that an entire people are blamed for a crime committed by a few.
Mr. Ambassador, over the past decades more than ten million Saudis have visited your country and around a million studied at your colleges, to give a very conservative estimate. All of them, according to your testimony, have been good ambassadors for their country, religion and nation. Why, then, put them on the spot and refuse even to look at their applications, thus making them the victims of stalling and procrastination?
Last summer nearly 150,000 Saudi tourists entered your country and spent $600 million in your hotels and shops; more than the amount spent by any other group of tourists visiting your country. They came back with a clean record without arousing the slightest suspicion. None of them charged with even a minor traffic violation.
I still carry a letter of appreciation from one of your leading universities stating that the Saudi community won the No. 1 position among the 73 foreign communities attending that university. I lived for several years there among my countrymen and was not aware of a single case against any of them for violating the law. We never entered a courtroom to stand before a judge and have never been subjected to any questioning. You will find only the Saudi people with such a clean record and this is something unique at the international level. You say your country was built on a respect for human rights and multiculturalism. All we ask is a simple comparison between our record and that of other nationalities. If we came second to anyone, then you are free to do with us whatever you wish to do.
Mr. Ambassador, thousands of our people have invested heavily on educating their children in your country. Some of these students were half way to graduation; others were just a few months away. Today, many of them find themselves standing in long queues outside your office hoping to return back to their colleges but without receiving an answer.
By so doing you are putting your country in the list of losers and jeopardizing historic relations that are nearing the breaking point. All this by generalizing things and leveling accusations at the innocent.
4 August 2002
