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Comment by moralestapia | Hacker News Reader

I can't feel bad for them.

I lived there for four years (at KAUST), I am deeply familiar with the country and its people. The Saudis are nice and well-intended, but a few bad apples spoil the bunch.

I left after my 4yo daughter was kidnapped(!) when I refused to sign some papers regarding my work situation. I am not making this up. The kidnapping was carried away by an Australian professor and a couple American guys working there, but when I tried to look for help I was horrified that this seemed to be business as usual and no one even batted an eye, no jurisdiction. Fortunately, we are safe now and doing better than ever, but, what a story.

Until they fix many of these things it will be very hard for them to establish a thriving economy.

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From the leaked diplomatic cables.

“Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide,”

“More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT, and other terrorist groups, including Hamas, which probably raise millions of dollars annually from Saudi sources.”

It's fertile ground for raising money to support terrorism not because a few bad apples support but because it enjoys broad support. Although data is somewhat scarce a survey in 2003 found that 53% supported Bin Laden for example.

https://icct.nl/app/uploads/2017/02/ICCT-Schmid-Muslim-Opini... Page 18

Which is probably why for example US made weapons have found their way via Saudi Arabia to al-Qaeda and ISIS linked groups.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/2/5/saudi-arabia-uae-gav...

Basically the bad apples are in fact somewhere between a majority and a near majority and they control the country.

> Which is probably why for example US made weapons have found their way via Saudi Arabia to al-Qaeda and ISIS linked groups.

To be fair. The US does a whole lot of that itself. The US even helped to transport al-Qaeda troupes from Lybia to Syria.

The DoD and CIA both had massive programs to push weapons into Syria, much of them ended up in Al Nusra and ISIS hands.

This is also not new, the US used extremist groups in the 90s under Clinton in the balkan and to support the Chechens.

I don't really get how there is on one hand only a few bad apples but also kidnapping a child is business as usual within their society?

Oh, I want to clarify something as that's a delicate thing. With "business as usual", I did not meant stuff like child trafficking was going on, far from it.

I meant to allude to the abusive work/life relationships that develop in a place like that, where people are isolated and there's no real supervision from competent authorities.

It was like living in a big replica of a Stanford prison experiment, I plan to write about it sometime as it showed me plenty of things about how humans could behave when certain circumstances are met.

This is a good read on the topic (the author has been on a few podcasts also)

https://www.amazon.com/Kidnap-Inside-Business-Anja-Shortland...

TLDR: Its basically an efficient market in some countries, most people have kidnap insurance even though they dont know it (as their employer isnt allowed to diclose this insurance), the insurers know the criminals going rate, and can cut off their entire business if they break the "rules"

Saudi Arabia has 60,000 slaves [0]. Their society is about 150 years behind the developed world. Once the world moves past fossil fuels, I expect Saudi Arabia to degenerate back into poverty. Their leaders are too ignorant or selfish to invest the country's wealth for long-term prosperity.

Saudi Arabia could become a well-functioning oligarchy like Singapore. Unfortunately, the Saudi government has only offered investment and cheap office space and done little else.

They should invest in:

1. Education for Saudi people: scholarships to study abroad, funding to open branches of foreign universities in Saudi Arabia, funding for many new international primary & secondary schools.

2. Brain drain: Education & scholarships for foreigners, good immigration processes with paths to citizenship, and equal rights for immigrants.

3. Healthy environment for business: Effective & fair legal system, good work visa processes, and effective worker protections.

USA (my country) protects and supports the corrupt Saudi government. Therefore, USA bears some of the blame for the squandering of Saudi Arabia's natural resources. Many Saudi people, including the late Osama bin Laden, hate USA for this.

[0] https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/data/country-data/sa...

You kind of left us hanging there...

How did you recover your daughter if the state doesn't care?

Called my embassy (even though they told me not to, LOL).

When things started to blow out, they realized it was not worth the trouble and they sent us back home. I have to say that we were never injured or anything like that, but still, ... wtf.

Moral of the story: ALWAYS call your embassy first.

Two Americans and an Australian carried it out? This seems like a wild newsworthy story.

Also: become Liam Neeson upset.

>If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career, skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you.

Moral of the story: do not visit a rotten country like that.

> The kidnapping was carried away by an Australian professor and a couple American guys working there,

Did charges ever get filed against the kidnappers? Like back in the US?

And was the professor reported to their university?

Looks like a relevant law might be "18 U.S.C. §1203":

* https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1203

* https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...

This seems to fit American-citizens holding your daughter, with threat to continue doing so, in order to compel you to do something (like sign a contract).

KAUST was pushed hard as an option while I was at MIT, very curious as to how well the instruments were maintained for research, since it seemed like they bought anything asked for (if you have any stories :)).

Oh, I can write a book about all of the things I saw there!

Send me an email (check profile) and we can chat for sure.

Please do a podcast series. A great example of a successful one is about the fiasco of building a Berlin airport. If you don’t want to produce yourself maybe reach out to a podcast studio. I’d looove to listen to your stories :)

That would be very nice.

I'm actually collecting stories about academic abuse from all around the world. The plan is to launch a website with all stories together to get more exposure.

This sort of abuse (not to the degree of what I suffered, but) is quite common within academy, this needs to stop, and the people who perform it/enable it need to be ousted from their positions.

Can you share a reference to the Berlin airport story? I have read about it, but am interested in listening to some accounts as well :) My heart still lives in Germany…

https://pca.st/podcast/10ed4dc0-fe54-0135-c260-7d73a919276a

That is absolutely terrifying glad you are both safe and were able to leave.

are you or your daughter US Citizens? What did the Department of State say about that?

American Dad has 2 episodes dedicated to showing that Saudi Arabia is the worst place in the world. Your story just reinforces that idea.

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