Attorney General Barr Refuses
to Release 9/11 Documents to Families of the Victims
The move comes after President Donald
Trump promised to help families, who accuse Saudi Arabia of complicity in the
attacks. Barr says he cannot even explain why the material must stay secret
without putting national security at risk.
April 15, 12:35
p.m. EDT
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Months after President Donald Trump promised to open FBI files
to help families of the 9/11 victims in a civil lawsuit against the Saudi
government, the Justice Department has doubled down on its claim that the
information is a state secret.
In a series of filings just before a midnight court deadline on
Monday, the attorney general, William Barr; the acting director of national
intelligence, Richard Grenell; and other senior officials insisted to a federal
judge in the civil case that further disclosures about Saudi connections to the
9/11 plot would imperil national security.
But the administration insisted in court filings that even its
justification for that secrecy needed to remain secret. Four statements to the
court by FBI and Justice Department officials were filed under seal so they
could not be seen by the public. An additional five, including one from the
CIA, were shared only with the judge and cannot be read even by the plaintiffs’
lawyers.
Barr insisted to the court that public discussion of the issue
“would reveal information that could cause the very harms my assertion of the
state secrets privilege is intended to prevent.”
What the various security agencies are trying to hide remains a
mystery.
Since the plaintiffs filed their lawsuit in federal district
court in New York in 2017, their primary focus has been on the relationship
between the hijackers and relatively low-level Saudi officials. Those include
at least two Saudis who crossed paths in Southern California with the first two
Al Qaeda operatives who were sent to the United States by Osama bin Laden in
January 2000.
Yet the broad outlines of the hijackers’ connections to those
two Saudi officials — a diplomat at the kingdom’s Los Angeles consulate and a
suspected Saudi spy living as an exchange student in San Diego — have been
publicly known for years. The FBI shared thousands of
pages of its files on the plot with the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, which
explored them in its 2004 report.
“The extraordinary lengths that they’re going to here suggest
that there must be some deep, dark secret that they’re still trying very hard
to hide after almost 20 years,” said a lawyer for the families, Steven Pounian.
“But who are they protecting? Something
might be a Saudi government secret. But how can these be secrets that still
need to be kept from the American people after all this time?”
The Justice Department has declassified some information about
the Saudi role in 9/11 and shared it with lawyers for the plaintiffs under a
protective order that allows them to read it but not make it public. But the
department has not asked the lawyers to obtain security clearances to view
other material, as is fairly common in national security cases involving
American and foreign citizens whose constitutional rights are at issue.
The chorus of senior national security officials who wrote in
support of the Trump administration’s secrets claim appeared to respond in part
to Justice Department guidelines set down by the Obama administration in 2009.
Those rules were intended to restrain overly aggressive use of the privilege,
which the administration of George W. Bush had often cited after 9/11 to block
legal challenges to its policies on torture, extraordinary rendition and
warrantless surveillance.
Barr cited those more restrictive guidelines in his statement to
the district court, noting that they prohibited the government from asserting a
state secrets claim in order to conceal illegalities or potential
embarrassment. He assured the magistrate judge in the case, Sarah Netburn, that
those guidelines had been met.
At a ceremonial gathering at the White House last Sept. 11,
representatives of the families of those killed in the attacks repeatedly asked
Trump for fuller access to the FBI’s secret files in the case. According to
more than a half-dozen people who were at the meeting, he assured several of
them he would help.
“He looked us in the eye on 9/11, he shook our hands in the
White House and said, ‘I’m going to help you — it’s done,’” recalled one of
those present, Brett Eagleson, a banker whose father was killed in the World
Trade Center. “I think the 9/11 families have lost all hope that the president
is going to step up and do the right thing. He’s too beholden to the Saudis.”
Operation Encore and the Saudi Connection: A
Secret History of the 9/11 Investigation
Behind the scenes, a small team of FBI agents spent years trying
to solve a stubborn mystery — whether officials from Saudi Arabia, one of
Washington’s closest allies, were involved in the worst terror attack in U.S.
history.
The White House press office did not immediately respond
Wednesday to a request for comment on the families’ characterizations of the
meeting. One day after that encounter, Justice Department officials agreed to
release the name of one mid-level Saudi religious official who had been tied to
the case in an FBI document that had been partially declassified earlier. At
the same time, however, Barr asserted the state secrets privilege to protect
other FBI documents sought by the families. The latest flurry of statements
supporting that claim responded to challenges from the plaintiffs.
Although the close alliance between the United States and the
Saudi kingdom has survived countless moments of tension, it has frayed in
recent months in ways that could prove helpful to plaintiffs in the 9/11
lawsuit.
In recent weeks, Republican senators from states that have been
hard hit by the collapse of world oil prices have criticized the Saudi
government with growing intensity. On March 25, before the Trump administration
negotiated a cut in Saudi oil production, Sen.
Lisa Murkowski of Alaska cited the law
under which the 9/11 families were allowed to sue the Saudi government as one
of the levers of pressure that the United States could use if the kingdom did
not take account of American concerns.
In a letter on Monday, three other influential senators asked
the Justice Department’s inspector general to examine in depth why the FBI has
refused to disclose more information about Saudi connections to the plot in
response to a subpoena filed by the 9/11 families in 2018.
Those senators, Charles
Grassley, the Iowa Republican, and two
Democrats, minority leader Charles
Schumer of New York and Richard
Blumenthal of Connecticut, cited a
recent investigative
report by ProPublica and The New York Times
Magazine that raised new questions about the FBI’s inquiry into the Saudi role
in the attacks.
“The September 11 attacks represent a singular and defining
tragedy in the history of our Nation,” the senators wrote to the Justice
Department inspector general, Michael Horowitz. “Nearly 20 years later, the
9/11 families and the American public still have not received the full and
transparent accounting of the potential sources of support for those attacks to
which they are entitled.”
US sends 3,000 more troops to defend Saudi monarchy
The Pentagon confirmed Friday that 3,000 more US troops are
being deployed to Saudi Arabia to defend the blood-soaked monarchy led by Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman and prepare for war against Iran.
The deployment includes two fighter squadrons, one Air
Expeditionary Wing (AEW), two more Patriot missile batteries, and one Terminal
High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD).
According to a Pentagon statement Friday, the US Secretary of
Defense phoned Crown Prince bin Salman (who also holds the post of Saudi
minister of defense) to inform him of the coming reinforcements, which he said
were meant “to assure and enhance the defense of Saudi Arabia.”
The Pentagon also acknowledged that the latest escalation
brings the number of additional troops sent into the Persian Gulf region since
May to 14,000. They have been accompanied by an armada of US warships and a
B-52-led bomber task force. The Pentagon has also announced that an aircraft
carrier-led battle group will remain in the Persian Gulf.
US soldiers deployed in the Middle East (U.S. Army by 1st Lt.
Jesse Glenn)
While initiated as a supposed response to unspecified threats
from Iran, the US buildup in the Persian Gulf region has constituted from its
outset a military provocation and preparation for a war of aggression. This
military buildup has accompanied Washington’s so-called “maximum pressure”
campaign of sweeping economic sanctions that are tantamount to a state of war.
The aim, as the Trump administration has stated publicly, is to drive Iranian
oil exports down to zero. By depriving Iran of its principal source of export
income, Washington hopes to starve the Iranian people into submission and pave
the way to regime change, bringing to power a US puppet regime in Tehran.
The latest military buildup was announced in the immediate
aftermath of an attack on an Iranian tanker in the Red Sea, about 60 miles from
the Saudi port of Jeddah.
The National Iranian Tanker Co. reported that its oil tanker,
the Sabiti, was struck twice by explosives early Friday morning, leaving two
holes in the vessel and causing a brief oil spill into the Red Sea.
While Iranian state news media blamed the damage on missile
attacks, a spokesman for the company told the Wall
Street Journal that the company was not sure of the cause.
Some security analysts have suggested that the fairly minor
damage to the vessel could have been caused by limpet mines. Such mines were
apparently used last June when two tankers—one Japanese and one
Norwegian-owned—were hit by explosions in the Sea of Oman. At the time,
Washington blamed the attacks on Iran, without providing any evidence. Tehran
denied the charge, saying that it sent teams to rescue crew member of the
damaged tankers.
The Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) quoted an unnamed
Iranian government official as stating that the Iranian tanker had been the
victim of a “terrorist attack.”
“Examination of the details and perpetrators of this
dangerous action continues and will be announced after reaching the result,”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said.
The National Iranian Tanker Co. issued a statement saying
that there was no evidence that Saudi Arabia was behind the attack.
The incident raised the specter of an escalating tanker war
that could disrupt shipping through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through
which 20 percent of the world’s oil supply flows. News of the attack sent crude
oil prices spiking by 2 percent.
In addition to the June attacks on the tankers in the Gulf of
Oman, in July British commandos, acting on a request from Washington, stormed
an Iranian super tanker, the Grace 1, in waters off the British overseas
territory of Gibraltar. In apparent retaliation, Iranian Revolutionary Guards
seized the British-flagged Stena Impero for what Tehran charged were violations
of international maritime regulations as it passed through the Strait of
Hormuz. Both tankers were subsequently released.
Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a
statement charging that the Iranian super tanker, renamed the Adrian Darya 1,
had offloaded its oil in Syria in violation of European Union sanctions and a
pledge made by Tehran to the UK at the time of the vessel’s release. He
demanded provocatively that “EU members should condemn this action, uphold the
rule of law, and hold Iran accountable.”
The Trump administration, which in May of last year
unilaterally and illegally abrogated the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran
and the major powers has been pressuring the European signatories to the
deal—Germany, France and the UK—to follow suit.
While the respective governments of the three countries have
insisted that they still support the nuclear agreement, they have repeatedly
bowed to Washington’s war drive, while failing to take any significant actions
to counter the effects of the US “maximum pressure” campaign and deliver to
Tehran the sanctions relief and economic normalization that it was promised in
exchange for curtailing its nuclear program.
Most recently, the three European governments backed
Washington in blaming Iran for a September 14 attack on Saudi oil facilities
that temporarily shut down half of the kingdom’s oil production and sent crude
prices spiraling by 20 percent—again without providing a shred of proof.
Washington is seeking to topple the Iranian regime or bully
it into accepting complete subordination to US imperialist predatory interests
in the energy-rich and geostrategically vital Middle East.
The US sanctions regime and military buildup have placed the
entire region on a hair trigger for the outbreak of a catastrophic war that
could engulf not only the Middle East, but the entire planet.
All of the regimes involved in the escalating conflict are
gripped by crises that make the drive to war all the more explosive.
The impact of the sanctions on Iran’s economy has been
devastating. It is estimated that oil exports last month fell to just 400,000
barrels per day (b/d), compared to 1.95 million b/d in September 2018. Left
with little means of combating spiraling inflation and growing unemployment,
Iran’s bourgeois-clerical regime is caught between intense pressure from
imperialism on the one hand, and the growth of social opposition among Iranian
workers and poor on the other.
The Saudi monarchy is confronting the debacle of its
four-year-old and near genocidal war against the people of Yemen, made possible
by the weapons and logistical aid provided by Washington, even as Prince bin
Salman remains a global pariah for his ordering of the grisly assassination of
dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi last year in Istanbul.
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, incapable of forming a new
government after two elections and confronting criminal indictments, has grown
increasingly concerned over the apparent lack of appetite by the Persian Gulf
Sunni monarchies for military confrontation with Iran and Washington’s failure
to carry out military strikes after the downing of its drone in June and the
attacks on the Saudi oil facilities last month. Clearly, Tel Aviv, which has
cast Iran as its strategic enemy, would have a motive for attacking Iranian
tankers in the hopes of provoking a response that could lead to US military
action.
And then there is Trump. He has proclaimed his determination
to halt the “endless wars” in the Middle East and provoked a political
firestorm by pulling back a relative handful of US troops in Syria, allowing
Turkey to launch a long-planned attack on the Pentagon’s erstwhile proxy force,
the Kurdish-dominated YPG militia.
Faced with an escalating political crisis and growing social
tensions within the US, along with an impeachment investigation by the
Democrats in Congress that is focused entirely on the national security
concerns of the CIA and the Pentagon, he has ample motive for launching a new
war.
While the Democrats’ exclusive focus on Trump’s failure to
pursue a sufficiently bellicose policy against Russia and prosecute the war for
regime change in Syria has allowed the US president to absurdly posture as an
opponent of war, the reality is that he has overseen a staggering increase in
military spending designed to prepare for “great power” confrontations,
particularly with China.
Meanwhile, whatever his political pretense, Trump has done
nothing to end any of the wars in the Middle East. While he has ordered US
troops to pull back, allowing the Turkish invasion, none of them have been
withdrawn from Syria.
With the latest buildup of US forces in Saudi Arabia,
Washington is preparing, behind the backs of the working class, to launch a
catastrophic military conflict with Iran. The most urgent task posed by these
developments is the building of a global antiwar movement led by the working
class. This movement must be armed with a socialist and internationalist
program to unify working people in the United States, Europe and the Middle
East in a common struggle against imperialist war and its source, the
capitalist system.
TRUMP AND THE MURDERING 9-11 MUSLIM SAUDIS…
Why is the Swamp Keeper and his family of
parasites up their ar$es??
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2019/03/trump-and-9-11-murdering-saudis-will-he.html
WHAT WILL TRUMP AND HIS PARASITIC FAMILY DO FOR
MONEY???
JUST ASK THE SAUDIS!
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2019/03/trump-flees-to-mar-swamp-amidst-mueller.html
JOHN DEAN: Not so
far. This has been right by the letter of the special counsel’s charter. He’s
released the document. What I’m looking for is relief and understanding
that there’s no witting or unwitting likelihood that the President is an agent
of Russia. That’s when I’ll feel comfortable, and no evidence even hints at
that. We don’t have that yet. We’re still in the process of unfolding the
report to look at it. And its, as I say, if [Attornery General William Barr]
honors his word, we’ll know more soon.
“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and
Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy
approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This
is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ---
- Karen McQuillan AMERICAN THINKER
PRESIDENT of the
UNITED STATES DONALD TRUMP: Pathological liar, swindler, con man, huckster,
golfing cheat, charity foundation fraudster, tax evader, adulterer, porn whore
chaser and servant of the Saudis dictators
THE TRUMP FAMILY
FOUNDATION SLUSH FUND…. Will they see jail?
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-phony-trump-slush-fund-will-it-put.html
VISUALIZE
REVOLUTION!.... We know where they live!
“Underwood is a
Democrat and is seeking millions of dollars in penalties. She wants Trump and
his eldest children barred from running other charities.”
Opinion: Trump And Pompeo Have Enabled A Saudi Cover-Up Of
The Khashoggi Killing
October 2, 201911:45 AM ET
AARON DAVID MILLER
RICHARD SOKOLSKY
In the weeks following the death of
Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Trump spent more time praising
Saudi Arabia as a very important ally than he did reacting to the killing.
Hasan Jamali/AP
Aaron David Miller
(@aarondmiller2) is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace and a former State Department Middle East analyst, adviser and negotiator
in Republican and Democratic administrations. He is the author most recently of
the End of
Greatness: Why America Can't Have (and Doesn't Want) Another Great President.
Richard Sokolsky, a nonresident
senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, worked in the
State Department for six different administrations and was a member of the
secretary of state's Office of Policy Planning from 2005 to 2015.
It
has been a year since Saudi journalist and Washington
Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi entered Saudi Arabia's
Consulate in Istanbul where he was slain and dismembered. There is still no
objective or comprehensive Saudi or American accounting of what occurred, let
alone any real accountability.
The
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's admission in a recent CBS interview that he takes
"full responsibility," while denying foreknowledge of the killing or
that he ordered it, sweeps under the rug the lengths to which the Saudis have
gone to obscure the truth about their involvement in the killing and cover-up.
The
Saudi campaign of obfuscation, denial and cover-up would never have gotten off
the ground had it not been for the Trump administration's support over the past
year. The president and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not only refused to
distance themselves from the crown prince, known by his initials MBS, but also
actively worked to relegitimize him. The Saudis killed Khashoggi but Trump
acquiesced in the cover-up and worked hard to protect the U.S.-Saudi
relationship and soften the crown prince's pariah status. In short, without
Trump, the attempted makeover — such as it is — would not have been possible.
The Saudis killed Khashoggi but Trump acquiesced in the
cover-up and worked hard to protect the U.S.-Saudi relationship and soften the
crown prince's pariah status.
Weak administration response
The
administration's weak and feckless response to Khashoggi's killing was
foreshadowed a year before it occurred. In May 2017, in an unusual break with
precedent, Trump visited Saudi Arabia on his inaugural presidential trip; gave
his son-in-law the authority to manage the MBS file, which he did with the
utmost secrecy; and made it unmistakably clear that Saudi money, oil, arm
purchases and support for the administration's anti-Iranian and pro-Israeli
policies would elevate the U.S.-Saudi "special relationship" to a new
level.
Predictably,
therefore, the administration's reaction to Khashoggi's killing was shaped by a
desire to manage the damage and preserve the relationship. In the weeks
following Khashoggi's death, Trump spent more time praising Saudi Arabia as a
very important ally, especially as a purchaser of U.S. weapons and goods, than he did reacting to the killing. Trump
vowed to get to the bottom of the Khashoggi killing but focused more on
defending the crown prince, saying this was another example of
being "guilty before being proven innocent."
Those
pledges to investigate and impose accountability would continue to remain
hollow. Over the past year, Trump and Pompeo have neither criticized nor
repudiated Saudi actions that have harmed American interests in the Middle
East. Two months after Khashoggi's death, the administration, in what Pompeo
described as an "initial step," imposed sanctions on
17 Saudi individuals implicated in the killing. But no others have been
forthcoming, and the visa restrictions that were imposed are meaningless
because none of the sanctioned Saudis would be
foolish enough to seek entry into the United States.
What's
more, the administration virtually ignored a congressional resolution imposing
sanctions on the Saudis for human rights abuses and vetoed another bipartisan
resolution that would have ended U.S. military assistance to Saudi Arabia's
inhumane military campaign in Yemen.
The
Saudis opened a trial in January of 11 men implicated in the killing, but the
proceedings have been slow and secretive, leading the United Nations' top human
rights expert to declare that "the trial underway in Saudi Arabia will not
deliver credible accountability." Despite accusations that the crown
prince's key adviser Saud al-Qahtani was involved in the killing, he's still
advising MBS, has not stood trial and
will likely escape punishment. A year later, there are still no reports of
convictions or serious punishment.
Legitimizing Mohammed bin Salman
The
Trump administration has not only given the crown prince a pass on the
Khashoggi killing, but it has also worked assiduously to remove his pariah
status and rehabilitate his global image. Barely two months after the 2018
slaying, Trump was exchanging pleasantries with the crown prince at the
Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires and holding
out prospects of spending more time with him. Then this past June, at the G-20
in Osaka, Japan, Trump sang his praises while dodging questions about the
killing. "It's an honor to be with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, a
friend of mine, a man who has really done things in the last five years in
terms of opening up Saudi Arabia," Trump said.
And
you can bet that when Saudi Arabia hosts the G-20, scheduled to be held in its
capital of Riyadh in November 2020, the Trump administration will be smiling as
its rehab project takes another step in its desired direction.
What the U.S. should have done
Trump
has failed to impose any serious costs or constraints on Saudi Arabia for the
killing of a U.S. newspaper columnist who resided in Virginia or for the
kingdom's aggressive policies, from Yemen to Qatar. In the wake of the
Khashoggi killing, the administration should have made it unmistakably clear,
both publicly and privately, that it expected a comprehensive and credible
accounting and investigation. It should
have suspended high-level contacts and arms sales with the kingdom for a period
of time. And to make the point, the administration should have supported at
least one congressional resolution taking the Saudis to task, in addition to
triggering the Magnitsky Act, which would have required a U.S. investigation; a
report to Congress; and sanctions if warranted.
Back to business as usual
The
dark stain of the crown prince's apparent involvement in Khashoggi's death will
not fade easily. But for Trump and Pompeo, it pales before the great
expectations they still maintain for the kingdom to confront and contain their
common enemy, Iran, as well as support the White House's plan for Middle East
peace, defeat jihadists in the region and keep the oil spigot open.
Most
of these goals are illusory. Saudi Arabia is a weak, fearful and unreliable
ally. The kingdom has introduced significant social and cultural reforms but
has imposed new levels of repression and authoritarianism. Its reckless
policies toward Yemen and Qatar have expanded, not contracted, opportunities
for Iran, while the Saudi military has demonstrated that, even after spending
billions to buy America's most sophisticated weapons, it still can't defend
itself without American help.
Meanwhile,
recent attacks on critical Saudi oil facilities that the U.S. blames on Iran
have helped rally more American and international support for the kingdom.
When
it comes to the U.S.-Saudi relationship and the kingdom's callous reaction to
Khashoggi's killing, the president and his secretary of state have been
derelict in their duty: They have not only failed to advance American strategic
interests but also undermined America's values in the process.
The U.S. Military is Sending Thousands of Troops and Even B-1
Bombers into Saudi Arabia (To Counter Iran)
The National Interest•November
3, 2019
On October 6, around fifty U.S. commandos in northeastern Syria
tasked with hunting down ISIS forces were withdrawn from territory near the
Turkish border controlled by the Kurdish-Arab SDF faction.
The U.S. withdrawal was a prerequisite for a Turkish attack
against the SDF which subsequently took place. The remaining hundreds of U.S.
forces elsewhere in northeastern Syria were endangered in the crossfire and had
to be withdrawn a few days later.
The U.S. withdrawal was post-hoc justified on the basis that they
were no longer needed in the Middle East and it was time to “bring the troops
home.”
But in the weeks since, the United States has deployed over
3,000 more troops to the Middle East—including hundreds of National Guardsmen
in Syria, and thousands of soldiers and airmen deployed to Saudi Arabia.
While a companion article looks at the deployment of a
mechanized battalion to defend an oil field in southeastern Syria, this second
part looks at the rapid buildup of U.S. forces in the wealthy Kingdom in response
to intensifying clashes with Iran following the United State’s withdrawal from
a nuclear deal with Tehran.
Return to the Kingdom
The deployments to Saudi Arabia marks a dramatic turn around
from sixteen years earlier in 2003, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
pulled out thousands of U.S. troops. Their presence had long been cited as a
factor radicalizing Muslims across the planet who objected to the presence of
foreign troops so close to the holy city of Mecca.
Apparently, these concerns have since faded, despite political
headwinds from a U.S. Congress angered by Saudi Arabia’s grisly murder of
journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its consulate in Istanbul.
The buildup has been prompted by Iranian harassment of shipping
in the Persian Gulf, the shootdown
of U.S. surveillance drone over the Persian Gulf in June, and a drone and
missile attack on Saudi oil refineries in September that was almost certainly
of Iranian origin but which Yemeni rebels took credit for.
First, following the loss of drones in June, that the Defense
Department announced it was doubling troop deployment to the Kingdom from 500
to 1,000 personnel.
Saudi Slavery
An Islamically-sanctioned barbarity continues.
November 8,
2019
Hugh Fitzgerald
As is well known, slavery was
formally abolished in Saudi Arabia as late as 1962, and then only after
terrific pressure had been applied to the Saudis by Western governments. And
today, when we speak of slavery in the Muslim world, we think of Mauritania
(with 600,000 slaves), as the report in the past hour discussed, Niger (600,000 slaves), Mali (200,000 slaves),
and Libya (where slave markets have opened in nine sites during the last two
years). Most of us assume that in Saudi Arabia, slavery is no longer tolerated.
But most of us are wrong.
Slavery may have been formally
abolished, but the cruel and savage treatment of foreign domestic workers, their
inability to free themselves from arduous work conditions because their
employers keep their passports and other documents, amount to slavery in all
but name.
A report on one group of
domestic slaves — Vietnamese women — by reporter Yen Duong, who interviewed
former workers who had made it back to Vietnam, was published last year in Al
Jazeera here:
Overworked, abused, hungry:
Vietnamese domestic workers in Saudi Arabia.
Women say they are forced to
work at least 18 hours a day, denied food, assaulted and refused the right to
return home.
Pham Thi Dao, 46, says she
worked more than 18 hours a day and was given the same one meal to live on – a
slice of lamb and plain rice.
Dao, 46, was a domestic worker
in Saudi Arabia for more than seven months until she returned to Vietnam in
April.
“I worked from 5am until 1am
in the morning, and was allowed to eat once at 1pm,” Dao told Al Jazeera of her
experience in the port city of Yanbu. “It was the same every day – a slice of
lamb and a plate of plain rice. After nearly two months, I was like a mad
person.”
According to statistics from
Vietnam’s labor ministry, there are currently 20,000 Vietnamese workers in the
kingdom, with nearly 7,000 working as domestic staff for Saudi families…
The same harsh conditions
which Vietnamese have endured have also been reported by the Filipino,
Indonesian, and Sri Lankan workers, in Saudi Arabia. And they have also been
endured by domestic workers in the the Emirates and Kuwait. In addition
to the harsh working conditions, there is the persistent threat of sexual
assault by their Arab masters. Some domestic workers have been raped and
murdered by their Arab employers. Yet it has been almost impossible to bring
employers to justice for such crimes.
Some who escaped have
recounted slave-like working and living conditions.
“I understand that as
[domestic] workers we need to get used to difficult working conditions,” said
Dao, who is vocal on social media about her experience. “We didn’t ask for
much, just no starvation, no beatings, and three meals per day. If we had that,
we would not have begged for rescue.”…
“As soon as I arrived at the
airport in Riyadh, they (employees from a Saudi company providing domestic
workers) pushed me into a room with more than a hundred of others,” she said.
“When my employer picked me up later, he took my passport and employment
contract. Most women I’ve talked to here experience the same thing.”
By seizing the workers’
passports, the Saudi employers have complete control over them. They cannot
leave the country, nor move about inside Saudi Arabia, nor go to work for
another employer. And if they don’t have their employment contract, which has
been seized by their employer, they have no way of knowing if the onerous
conditions they endure violate the contract’s provisions. They are captives of
their employer in every sense.
Like Dao, she said she was
given one meal a day and worked 18-hour shifts.
Another domestic worker, who
requested anonymity, showed Al Jazeera her contract stipulating a nine-hour
working day – a standard given the contracts are composed by Vietnam’s labour
ministry.
Dao shows notes from the
Arabic lesson she took before her trip. Vietnamese domestic workers are
entitled to classes on language, skills and culture but the sessions are poorly
executed, say the workers.
When Linh asked to be moved to
another family – a workers’ right according to their contracts – staff at the
Vietnamese broker company shouted at her and tried to intimidate her.
She went on a hunger strike
for three days until her employer agreed to take her back to the Saudi company…
Leaving an employment contract
carries a hefty fine, plus the price of a ticket back to Vietnam, if the worker
is unable to prove abuse at the hands of their employers.
The cost of quitting is
usually between $2,500 and $3,500.
If workers get, at best, $388
per month, that means that if they manage to persuade their employer to give
them back their passports and to let them leave, they will still have to come
up with between seven and nine months of salary that must be paid back. And
that assumes that they will be paid the highest amount ($388/month) and will
have all other expenses, during that period of seven-to-nine months, paid by
their employer.
Tuyet told her partner in
Vietnam by phone that she is being abused by the family she works for in
Riyadh.
Bui Van Sang’s partner, Tuyet,
works in Riyadh.
He said she is being beaten
and starved.
The Vietnamese broker company
asked him for $2,155 for her return, but refused to put anything in writing, he
claimed.
Her phone has been taken away
and Sang is only able to contact her every two to three weeks, “when her
employer feels like [allowing her]”.
These domestic workers are
totally at the mercy of their Arab employers. They cannot even contact anyone
in the outside world unless the employer “feels like [allowing her].” They are,
essentially, prisoners whose brutal living and working conditions are set by
the employer, who answers to no one. That constitutes slavery, whether or not
it is called by that name.
By the time he had raised the
$2,155, the Vietnamese broker company demanded double the payment, he said.
He travelled 1,500km from his
southern Vietnamese home province of Tay Ninh to the capital, Hanoi, to beg the
broker, but was turned away….
The Vietnamese brokers are
akin to slave traders. They round up the “slaves” (domestic workers), hold out
the promise of decent work and pay which, once those they traffic in arrive in
Saudi Arabia, is simply ignored. The slaves have been delivered, the brokers
paid by the Saudi employers, and the living conditions, of 18-hour days,
with one meal a day, are now the norm. For beatings and sexual assaults, there
is no recourse for these Vietnamese domestics. Meanwhile, Saudi employers hold
onto those passports without which these workers cannot leave the country.
There are no independent organisations
in either Saudi Arabia or Vietnam which ensure the safety of domestic workers.
In the past few years, reports
of abuse have prompted Saudi authorities to suggest amendments to existing
labor regulations, but rights groups say they fall short.
Whatever regulations are
talked about, Saudi employers still do pretty much what they want in setting
the conditions of work for domestic helpers.
Workers and their relatives
have to rely entirely on the Vietnamese broker companies for support.
Linh, the domestic helper in
Riyadh, said when she contacted the Vietnamese company that brought her there,
they told her the employment contract is only valid in Vietnam, not in Saudi
Arabia.
In other words, the Vietnamese
brokers, having been paid by the Saudi employers, have washed their hands of
the Vietnamese workers sent to Saudi Arabia. The employment contracts on which
these domestic workers were relying are, they now admit, worthless in Saudi
Arabia. These women have no guarantee of any rights; whatever their Saudi
employer wishes to impose is what they must accept. Hence the 18-hour days,
seven days a week, and the single meal each day. How is this not akin to
slavery?
“They [the Vietnamese
companies] are supposed to protect our rights, but all they do is yell at us,”
Linh said by phone. “Now I just want to leave the country. If I go to the
police, at least they’d bring me to the detention centre, and I’d be deported
and allowed to leave.”
She recently livestreamed a
video detailing the treatment that she and many fellow Vietnamese domestic
helpers face while working in Saudi Arabia.
The video has been viewed
113,000 times.
“Many women I know here just
want the same thing – they just want to leave,” she said. “But they are afraid,
threatened, and don’t even dare to speak out.”
Their fear is palpable. If
they complain of their working conditions, will they be beaten by their
employers? Will they be given even more unpleasant or difficult tasks? Will the
18-hour day become a 20-hour day, as one Vietnamese man reported his wife had
had to endure, that is with only four hours of sleep allowed? Will even the one
slice of meat they are now given be reduced still further, or will they perhaps
not be given meat at all? Will they no longer be allowed to call home even twice
a month? Not all Saudi employers are simon-legrees, but a great many appear to
be. The point is that domestic workers ought to have rights enshrined in the
Saudi law, but they do not. And the conditions which they endure are scarcely
distinguishable from slavery.
The Saudis are not alone in
such mistreatment of their domestic workers. The Kuwaitis and the Emiratis have
been difficult masters, too, but the conditions of domestic workers appear to
be especially harsh in Saudi Arabia. The mentality that lies behind this
mistreatment rests on two things. First, there is the deep belief that slavery
is legitimate, given that Muhammad himself owned slaves, and does not become
illegitimate in Islamic societies just because Western pressure has led to its
formal prohibition. The slave-owner mentality remains. Second, these domestic
workers — Vietnamese, Filipino, Thai, Indonesian, Sri Lankan — are almost all
non-Muslims, and the treatment they receive is commensurate with their
description in the Qur’an, as being “the most vile of creatures.” It
would be interesting to compare the working conditions of the non-Muslim
domestic workers in Saudi Arabia with those who, from Indonesia, are themselves
Muslim. But that’s a subject for another occasion.
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