Friday, February 08, 2008

Whoops

Yesterday we posted about the businesswoman in Saudi Arabia who was arrested, strip-searched, and threatened by the Saudi religious police because she was out in public with a male colleague. Today Fox News reports that two weeks before being arrested, the same woman had been boasting about how wonderful things were for women in Saudi Arabia—to President Bush’s brother Neil: American Woman Boasted of Saudi Freedoms To Bush Brother Before Arrest at Starbucks.

Two weeks before Yara, an American businesswoman, was arrested by Saudi Arabia’s religious police for sitting with a male colleague at Starbucks, she said she strolled past the very same cafe with another businessman: Neil Bush.

But on Monday, Yara learned that she had been wrong. She was thrown in jail, strip-searched, threatened and forced to sign false confessions by the kingdom’s “Mutaween” police. “When I was arrested, it was like going through an avalanche,” she said. “All of my beliefs were completely destroyed.”