At the end of 2004 accusations stalked Saudi student Homaidan Al-Turki who had gone to the United States on a scholarship. When the accusations first arose, the Ministry of Higher Education should have worked hard to bring Al-Turki back to the Kingdom.
Now that he has been sentenced, do you think he really deserves to be sentenced to 20 years to life in prison? If he deserved what he got, then what sentence has to be given to the American soldier who raped and murdered a teenage Iraqi girl? In fact what will he get?
I won’t list the horrendous crimes Americans are committing in Iraq, in Abu Ghraib, or in Guantanamo Bay. History will document these cruelties and commemorate them as a sign of honor similar to the Statue of Liberty in the New York Harbor.
Al-Turki’s sentence was unjust and unfair. Pleas to the US president were useless because the jury had made its decision. We grew up knowing that the accused is innocent until proven guilty. The Western rules nowadays assume that every Muslim is guilty and a terrorist until proven otherwise.
Each mother and father must think twice before sending their children to universities in the United States. Al-Turki’s lawyer, Thomas Nilsson, rightly argued that it was becoming dangerous for Saudi and Muslim students to live in the United States. He tried to emphasize that the situation is only getting worse and governments must be aware of the risk they are undertaking by sending students to such a hostile country. Scholarships and education are important, but a peaceful and safe environment is also necessary for students to function normally.
I wish we could stop sending our students abroad and instead develop and support our public and private colleges in the Kingdom. Achieving international educational standards in our colleges and universities would serve our students better than sending them to a country where the administration clearly has a system that is unfair.
