However, they did not submit an official complaint, believing that no one would do them justice.
The whole family was poisoned, and the one who caused it did not face any penal action. In such cases, all what the authorities do is closing the restaurants for a day or two and have them pay a fine. The money will not go to the victims, who will have to pay their hospital bills themselves. The restaurants should be made liable to pay all medical expenses, as is the case in the rest of the world.
I have been passing by this fast-food restaurant for the last two days, watching crowds inside and long queues outside, and wondering who would be the next victim.
Most of our restaurants have a poor level of hygiene; they lack cleanliness because of dirty workers and kitchenware. Strangely, customers buy fast food without considering what is happening behind the curtains. Food contamination and expired frozen food inside cooking areas of restaurants are factors that poison people and lead to food-borne illnesses.
Madinah Gov. Prince Abdul Aziz bin Majed has set an example when he sacked seven foreign cooks without any hesitation. Four of them had not obtained health certificates, besides the fact that they served the meat of sick goats to customers. They were handed over to the concerned authorities for further investigations. Prince Abdul Aziz also encouraged citizens to inform the authorities about any violations they come across.
Society should not stay silent on such awful crimes. People are being poisoned from certain restaurants; however, these restaurants are still open to public. How is this possible? Who will then protect the customers?
In the Madinah case, we noticed foreigners coming to this holy city to feed people toxic food. They operate without obtaining the necessary permits. As far as I know, opening a restaurant requires workers to have a special health certificate. This means that there are no proper municipal monitoring, and workers violate rules without fear of punishment.
I wonder how many among the huge number of restaurants providing rice and meat would be entitled to have a quality certificate. We must adopt the system used in Western countries for rating restaurants with stars. In that case, instead of chasing easy money from the pockets of poor people by serving them toxic meals, restaurants would chase after a star or two.
