AMMAN, 2 April 2003 — The Kingdom’s Ambassador to Jordan, Abdul Rahman Al-Ohali, yesterday told Arab News that a report in the Al-Watan daily which stated that Saudi students in Jordan were being harassed was a “gross exaggeration”.
Speaking to Arab News, the ambassador said cases of such harassment had been random and few and far between.
“There were a few cases where cars were vandalized, but the subsequent investigation revealed that they had nothing to do with Saudis being singled out.”
The Saudi Embassy gave students the option of returning home for a short period to be with their families during the duration of the ongoing war in Iraq. However, only 150 students decided to take up the offer.
Al-Watan had claimed that many students from the Gulf states had decided to come home, including those from the Kingdom and Yemen. In actual fact, only a small number of students from Oman have returned home — the majority of them women.
Arab News also spoke with a former Saudi diplomat who said that “some students do take advantage of loopholes in times of crisis. You do find students who are not doing particularly well in their studies taking advantage of the possibility of dropping a term. It is a way of saving face, and they usually take it.”
It was also reported in Al-Watan that the Jordanian Ministry of Interior was preparing to investigate the matter. But when contacted by Arab News, the ministry’s public affairs representative, Adel Al-Hadedi, denied any such statement had been made on the matter. “We have never made any statements on this matter. The incidents were almost certainly random, and could have happened anywhere.”
There are 1,800 Saudi students in Jordan, besides 240 in special training programs for the handicapped.
