ALKHOBAR, 25 October 2006 — At this happy time of year, some families in the Kingdom sit at home in fear. They live in terror, not of bombs in the night, but of thieves who too often come in broad daylight.
Last month, the Al-Ghamdi family of the Al-Aziziah area went out after sunset prayer and when they arrived home at Isha prayer time, they found that their home had been burgled. The thieves were quite brazen. They waited till the family left and then drove up to the house in a new, black colored SUV. How are such details known? Not because the thieves were caught. No indeed. Rather, the driver of the vehicle stood outside the house and calmly chatted to the next-door neighbor while his accomplice(s) quickly searched the house for valuables.
Once the neighbor went back inside his home, the thieves exited the house next door and drove away. They took SR3,000 cash and a jewelry box that contained a good quantity of gold jewelry. When the homeowner returned, he immediately realized that his house had been burgled, as the back door was smashed. Keeping his family outside, he called the police. It was the start of a long ordeal, with hours required before the forensics unit arrived to take fingerprints.
The Al-Ghamdis were lucky. Their losses were minor compared to some. Due to the rising level of burglary, some people remove all valuables such as gold and electronics from the house before they travel. This can result in huge property loss.
“Our neighbors put all their valuables with relatives before going on vacation,” said Yahya Al-Shammari. “Thieves broke into their home while they were away and when they didn’t find anything interesting to steal, they took knives to all the furnishings. Beds, sofas, curtains even cabinets were cut and damaged. They would have been better off leaving some jewelry and cash for the thieves to enjoy and run off with, so they didn’t wreck the house.”
It’s not just people’s residences that get burgled. Robbers also target businesses and construction sites. Hasan, a Saudi from Qatif, noticed that the chicken shops in his neighborhood were closing much earlier than before. When he asked why, the shop owners told him that it was because the shops that stayed open late were getting robbed.
“The robbers enter the chicken shop, demand the cash and then beat up the shop attendant so he can’t call for help,” Hassan explained. “When I was a child here in Qatif, once in a while I’d see a man who was missing his right hand. Everyone knew that meant he’d been punished for robbery. It was a warning and it kept the level of crime down. Now, we don’t apply that punishment for theft and that’s a mistake. We stick to other aspects of Shariah with such fervor but something that could dramatically enhance public safety, we choose to ignore.”
Other regulations that are ignored are laws prohibiting single men from residing in residential areas zoned for families. On numerous lots where new homes are being built, tents are pitched on the construction site. Some poor expatriate lives in that tent throughout the construction period to ensure that thieves don’t make off with the construction materials. The majority of the tents have no running water, plumbing or air conditioning. The inhumanity in this setup makes the entire neighborhood miserable, but builders claim they have no choice because the police don’t protect the construction sites.
“My father refused to station a guard in a tent on his property while our new house was being built,” said Bassim S. “One weekend, just after we had begun installing the electrical wiring throughout the house, all the wire was stolen. They even ripped out the wiring that had been placed in the channels in the walls. When the construction crew arrived on Saturday morning, the thieves were long gone. We lost at least SR16,000 worth of materials that weekend.”
What do the police have to say about the increase in thefts? An article last week in Al-Watan discussed the issue of thefts during the iftar time in one north Doha neighborhood, outside the main city of Alkhobar. The head of the Eastern Province police, Maj. Gen. Muhammad Assaf, stated that the Doha area got robbed three times in that night in which the perpetrators focused on stealing jewelry. He said that the reason for such thefts in Ramadan was because the home owners left their houses without providing necessary security precautions such as window bars, strong doors and alarm systems.
Perhaps that is true, but hear the case of one Riyadh family. They went on vacation two years ago, leaving one grown son at home. That son, Muhammad Walid, went to work at the same time every day, and one morning while he was away at the office, thieves broke in and stole his mother’s and sisters’ jewelry and a video camera. The police came and inquired as to whom Walid suspected were the thieves. Based on questions asked by snoopy neighbors, he advised the police to investigate the Arab family which lived next door. Sure enough, it was them. The son of the family was caught red-handed with the jewelry receipts and the video camera.
The thief spent less than a month in jail. After 14 months of misery, in which Walid had to take off numerous days from work to follow up the case, eventually the family received about SR20,000 from the thief in restitution — only to cover the theft of the gold jewelry.
Where does the thief now live who robbed Walid and his family? He still lives right next door. Even though he is not a Saudi, deportation from the Kingdom was never discussed and the judge told Walid that he considered that adequate punishment had been meted out. Now, Walid’s father refuses to leave their home empty. Family outings no longer include the entire family anymore as someone must always sit at home to keep thieves at bay.
There was a time when people in Saudi Arabia never locked their doors. Now the police are advising everyone to put bars on the windows and install security systems to keep thieves out. People who pass bad checks or don’t repay loans receive harsh treatment from the courts, so how could those same courts consider easier sentences for criminals who terrorize families by breaking into homes. Where’s the justice in that?
