Saudi Hardball: the Right Dissident or the Wrong Nobody?...............
“Mokhallaf bin Doham Al-Shamri claims he was harassed after an official at the airport twisted his words and alleged his baggage contained explosives. This subsequently led to the closure of Tabuk airport for four hours and a high security alert. Al-Shamri was flying on a domestic Saudi Arabian Airlines flight from Tabuk to Dammam. On arriving in Dammam he found his luggage missing, reported Al-Madinah newspaper. “I then contacted the baggage counter and lodged a formal complaint about the missing baggage. The official in charge told me that the message would be passed on to Saudia’s Jeddah headquarters,” he said. “At that time, three Yemeni passengers arrived at the counter and said they had missed their flight from Riyadh and had come by car to collect their luggage which came by plane. The official allowed them to take their baggage. “When I saw the baggage scattered and unattended, I expressed my displeasure. I also mentioned that it would be easy for somebody to put explosives or drugs into a person’s baggage, including mine. This apparently infuriated the official and so he began harassing me.” Al-Shamri said he was subsequently taken into custody and questioned by security officials. ……”
What the newspaper dutifully leaves out is that Mr. al-Shamri is a well known human rights activist and has often called for reform. Unless there is someone else with the same name and they picked on him thinking he was THAT al-Shammari (his name is also spelled al-Shammary in Latin).
Cheers
mhg
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