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Saudis confront soaring crime
EFL:Saudi Arabiaâs deeply conservative Islamic society is coming to terms with a crime wave ushered in by a population boom, rapid social change, increased unemployment and a reduction in oil revenue. A report this year by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency said crime among young jobless Saudis rose 320 percent from 1990 to 1996 and is expected to increase by an additional 136 percent by 2005. The dumb ones go off on jihads, the clever ones stay home and become crooks. Although official crime and unemployment statistics are not available, the number of jobless Saudis is estimated to be as high as 35 percent, and the al-Riyadh daily newspaper has reported that in 1999, courts dealt with 616 murder cases. The highest number of murders was in Mecca, Islamâs holiest city. Holy outrage, Batman! "People here are totally confused. They donât understand how crime can keep rising in this Muslim society," the newspaper said in a two-page special on crime. Iâm sure they are. Theyâve been told since birth that all good muslims are, well, good. And since Saudi is the holy seat of the universe, it should be overflowing with goodness, right? The days when Saudis could leave their homes unlocked, even when they went on vacation, are long gone. Thieves have taken to robbing whole apartments, after brazenly parking a van in the street outside. Police recently arrested a Saudi man, based on fingerprint evidence, who had burgled at least 25 houses in the capital. Riyadh police say that in the past three years, they have recorded more than 13,000 serious robberies. A highly publicized visit by de facto ruler Crown Prince Abdullah, a reformer, to a slum in a Riyadh suburb in January helped put the spotlight squarely on social deprivation. The mass-circulation Okaz Arabic-language daily subsequently ran a frank three-part series on Kerantina, a slum to the south of Jidda, from which undercover journalists reported that prostitution, drug abuse and alcohol smuggling are rife. Iâm sure they spent a lot of time investigating this problem, at least thatâs what they told their editor. The whole area, the article said, becomes a police no-go area after dark. Any wonder why the cops canât catch terrorists when they canât bust hookers and bootleggers? The number of drug smugglers, dealers and users in the kingdom has increased sharply, from 4,279 in 1986 to 17,199 in 2001, according to the latest published statistics. These figures probably only reveal the tip of the iceberg. At least three districts of Riyadh â Batha, Olaya and Badia â are safe havens for alcohol and drug smugglers, as is the Kerantina district of Jidda, the main city in the al-Jouf region on the Iraqi border, Sakaka, and Jizan, near the Saudi-Yemeni border in the south. Note that the same areas show up in reports of firefights with terror suspects. Heroin, hashish and amphetamines are the most commonly used drugs in Saudi Arabia, according to Maj. Gen. Sultan al-Harithi, director-general of the countryâs antinarcotics department. But in an interview with a Saudi daily this year, he said, drugs are considered "a phenomenon, not a menace." Right Posted by: Steve 2003-12-23 |
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