Indictment: Saudi Couple in Colorado Kept Woman as Household Slave

[NNN0LHI]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBLSEUYS9E.html

AURORA, Colo. (AP) - A Saudi Arabian couple was in custody Friday, accused of turning a young Indonesian woman into a virtual slave, forcing her to clean, cook and care for their children while she was threatened and sexually assaulted.

A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Homaidan Al-Turki, 36, and his wife, Sarah Khonaizan, 35, on charges of forced labor, document servitude and harboring an illegal immigrant.

Al-Turki also faces state charges including kidnapping, false imprisonment and extortion, as well as 12 charges of sexual assault. His wife faces some of the same charges. The two could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.

Phone messages left Friday for their individual lawyers were not immediately returned.

[Deja Q]

1. We're all enslaved. By the oil kept in their homeland.

Saudis have a homeland too? (you bet * would ask that... just as he asked about Blacks in Brazil.)

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. Lynching?

Just free associating. Don't mind me.

[KlatooBNikto]

3. The enslavement of Asian women( from India, Phillippines,Thailand,

Indonesia,Vietnam,Pakistan, sri Lanka and Bagladesh) by rich Arab households in Saudi Arabia, Egypt,Kuwait and the Emirates has been on going for three decades with not even a voice raised in protest in those countries. These young women are poor and seeking a way out of their poverty by coming to the rich Arab lands where they find harassment, overwork,beatings, torture, rape and death.

Unless Bush and our own Democrats address this issue openly and freely and find a way to assist these young women all our talk about bringing Democracy and Freedom will ring hollow.

The apprehension of this Saudi couple is a good first step. We need to do more.

[alarcojon]

15. Anything negative about the Saudis,

our "allies in the War on Terror" and "strategic oil partners," doesn't make it into the MSM. It would be nice if this got some exposure, but, sadly, it won't.

[Colorado Blue]

17. I agree with you. These are difficult matters for us (leftists)

to discuss, I think, because we believe in tolerance and respect for other people, other cultures.

It is made more difficult by the fact that some of these countries aren't really open to the outside world. Saudi Arabia is a case in point. ALL women there are literally hidden, not just the foreign workers. So, we don't really have a good picture of what goes on AND, out of respect, don't want to point the accusing finger bone.

Other interests don't want to point the accusing finger bone due to respect for the oil which we desperately need.

So we need to do TWO things, IMO: find the courage to talk about the oppression of women and the weak, and find the courage to develop alternative fuels. We need to confront our politicians about this. In the case of the Bush Administration that's really hard because they ARE big oil. They literally have been involved in the business and the money and power behind them, also involved in oil, petrochemicals and related industries, are absolutely enormous.

This planet is really suffering and our economic dependence upon oil is directly involved - WE, as individuals - are directly involved.

[Straight Shooter]

4. If the household slave isn't white, young, and pretty, no one bats an eye

Do you think Bill O'Reilly is going to get into a lather over this? (No pun intended.) Americans don't "get" that slavery is still a persistent problem in the world.

Bad enough the husband committed these acts. Even worse that the wife was part of it.

[mbperrin]

5. The Saudis are our allies, right?

So why does Colorado hate 'Murika?

[quaoar]

6. If these Saudis have connections back home

I'm sure they will be quietly whisked out of the country by private jet before they ever appear in court.

[malaise]

7. A Texas couple did that

to some Jamaicans a few years ago. They escaped after a few years. The couple went to prison.

[SlipperySlope]

8. No intent to offend...

Islam has a long tradition of slavery, with specific instructions on the keeping of slaves. The initial African slaves sold to America came from markets primarily intended to sell slaves to the middle east.

Saudi Arabia was the last nation to end "legal" slavery, in 1962.

Google on "Saudi Slavery" and you will see that guest workers today are hardly any better than slaves.

[John Q. Citizen]

9. Partly true, but the slave trade to the Americas was same supplying the

Portuguese in Brazil for a century before.

Believe me, all the plantations in the New World created a huge demand, along with the mines.

[Igel]

20. Partly true, in the same sense

that the desire of Columbus to find a route to the Indies was driven by the spice trade, entirely in Muslim hands by the time the spices reached Europe.

Create a demand, increase the prices, and then market forces handle the rest. Cardamom, cinnamon, black slaves. No difference.

Slave trading as a profession predates the Portuguese getting in on the act by more than 500 years. The difference is that the Iberians, and later the British, decided that only one "race" was fair game, whatever the religion of the members of that race. Until then, the slave trade was equal opportunity to all races, with only one religion not considered fair game.

[Ms. Clio]

11. So does Christianity have a long tradition of slavery

such as the Spanish in the New World and white slaveowners in the U.S. South.

This has nothing to do with Islam, anyway.

[Igel]

21. It has as much to do with Islam as slavery in the OT has to do

with "primitive" Judaism.

To the extent Jews and Xians reject the authority and applicability of Old Testament texts (and, possibly, Pauline texts), there is no justification for slavery in Judaism and Christianity.

To the extent that Muslims reject Qur'anic teachings, and Hadith judged to be authentic, there is no room for slavery in Islam.

That's about the most neutral, objective way to express the relationship between modern believers and the texts claimed as the basis for their beliefs.

[Ms. Clio]

27. It is clear the intent was to smear Islam by mentioning it in this context

Just because the captors were Saudis. There was certainly nothing mentioned in the article about religion being used to justify their criminal activities.

[JNelson6563]

12. No offense taken

except you forgot to mention that the bible raises no voice against slavery and even goes so far as to urge slaves to be happy with their lot in life and slave-owners to not be too harsh.

Ah yes, religion, the source of enlightenment. Not.

Julie

[Art_from_Ark]

14. The Bible raised a voice against slavery

when it was the Children of Israel who were the slaves, and they decided to get the hell out of Phaoroah's Egypt

[The Stranger]

16. Right, but then "God" told them to go and murder the various "ites" . . .

. . . the Canaanites and Edomites and various other "ites."

In fact, they then took some of those people into slavery. So, in actuality, "God" doesn't seem to have a problem at all with slavery.

[Colorado Blue]

19. Oh, GIVE ME A BREAK. That was in 3,000 BC.

I'd like to think, maybe, people have evolved a little since then.

Apparently not. Apparently SOME people are still trying to blame the "Children of Israel" either for escaping Pharoah, or for writing a book which others, today, persist in taking literally.

[Art_from_Ark]

22. Huh?

I fail to see what your point is, and no doubt you failed to see mine. My point was, the Bible frowned upon slavery when the Israelites were on the receiving end. How you were able to interpret that as "blam(ing) the "Children of Israel" either for escaping Pharoah, or for writing a book which others, today, persist in taking literally" is beyond my ken.

[Colorado Blue]

24. I apologize if I misconstrued your statement. nt

[SlipperySlope]

13. I didn't mean to say...

That Christianity was spotless. What I meant to say is that slavery persisted in Saudi Arabia through most of the twentieth century, and still exists there in pockets today.

I'm not flabbergasted that a Saudi family living in Colorado brought the tradition with them.

The Saudi's aren't any kind of "champions of human freedom", no matter what people in Washington might want us to believe.

[Ms. Clio]

28. So what? What does that have to do with their religion?

Debt slavery still persists in India, too. Thousands of children are sold into slavery to pay their parents' debts.

There was absolutely no reason to mention religion at all.

[SlipperySlope]

29. Huh?

It relates to their religion because they interpreted their religion to justify the condition of slavery. Both the Koran and the Hadith can and have been used to justify the ongoing practice.

I'm sorry if these facts are upsetting to you.

[Ms. Clio]

32. Please find the exact paragraph in the posted article

Where the couple used the Koran to justify their criminal activities?

Religion in no way entered this conversation about a criminal act under U.S. law until you wandered in and said, "No offense, but...."

But I guess we should bring up Christianity in relation to this man's criminal activity in holding people as virtual slaves, as well?

Officials: Fla. Men Forced to Work at Farm
Jun 11, 9:06 AM (ET)

By MIKE SCHNEIDER

EAST PALATKA, Fla. (AP) - A farm labor contractor has been accused of luring homeless men into indentured servitude by forcing them to work off debts from the purchase of alcohol and crack cocaine, authorities said.

Officials are investigating whether conditions at the farmworker camp run by labor contractor Ronald Robert Evans - which was raided earlier this month by federal and local agents - amounted to modern-day slavery.

"Evans and his enforcers allegedly employ force or threat of force to keep the workers in a condition of involuntary servitude," reads a three-page U.S. Department of Labor "Operation Plan" distributed to agents before the raid.

Evans was charged last week with making false statements to a federal investigator and allowing unauthorized drivers to transport farmworkers. Three associates were arrested on similar charges. He was released on $50,000 bond and ordered to have no contact with the camp, a parcel of land off a dirt enclosed by chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050611/D8ALE3IO0.html

[Stockholm]

33. kick n/t

[benddem]

10. In Saudi Arabia

where I once worked, the Saudis took the passports of the women who worked in their homes(from 3rd world countries). When they went out for the evening they would lock the nannies in the house with the children. You cannot leave the country without a passport and the permission of a male. The women were virtual slaves. In many of the homes they became the sexual toys of the young men in the home. When the women were impregnated they were jailed for prostitution. Of course nothing happened to the brats. After the child was born the woman was deported.
These are terrible people...but please don't make decisions about muslims based on the rich saudis.

[PassingFair]

26. Yeah, well I knew a business woman in Detroit,

who transfered from Singapore and brought her "nanny" with her. I remember her complaining that the girl was "talking to much" with the Grosse Pointe nannies, and she was thinking of taking her passport away to ensure that the girl would not run away.
I was aghast, to say the least.
This woman was Canadian, by the way. Guess it was just another case of situational ethics.
PS: She ended up sending the girl back to her parents...

[warrens]

18. Wait, they're our allies against Terra

Would Mr. Bush's bestest buddies do something like this?

[0007]

23. The SS will probably charge the Indonesian woman with prostitution

and claim the Saudis were ripped off!

[Colorado Blue]

25. OK, don't laugh - BUT - there was a recent conference in

Jordan, a huge meeting of 700 people or so from throughout the Middle East.

No less than LIZ CHENEY chastised the Saudi Arabian delegate for human rights violations and specifically, women's rights.

That must have been a sight to behold:)

[Chicago Democrat]

30. Hey, this is totally normal...

Nothing to see here... move along people......



(sarcasm off)

[agincourt]

31. This is the product,

of a society where you're value is entirely determined by how much you own. The natural endgame of a Grover Norquist agenda.