Riyadh: Outraged at the humiliating "extraordinary" security checks of Saudis at various US airports, several Saudi citizens urged the authorities to take retaliatory measures through introducing similar checks for passengers coming from the United States at Saudi airports.
As part of a protest against the US move, they also demand suspension of sending Saudi students to the US for higher studies, and transferring a portion of Saudi investments, designed for the US, to some other countries.
The newly introduced measures call for intensified checks and full-body scanning of air travellers, especially to and from 14 countries including Saudi Arabia.
Moram Abdul Rahman, a Saudi woman writer living in Britain, noted that it is painful that Saudi Arabia is the only country among the Arab allies of the United States that was included in the list.
"There are thousands of Americans working in the kingdom, and the number of Saudis living in the US was many times more than this number. Both countries also enjoy strong economic, political, commercial and cultural ties," she said, while noting that the US authorities have ignored all these realities and resorted to a humiliating act.
Meeting
Meanwhile, the president of the Saudi Human Rights Commission. Dr Bandar Bin Mohammad Al Aiban, voiced deep concern over the security checks.
During his meeting with a delegation of the New York-based US Council on Foreign Relations at the Commission headquarters here on Wednesday, Dr Al Aiban urged the US administration to ease the restrictions and facilitate travel and immigration procedures for Saudi passengers to the United States.
The US delegation held wide-ranging talks with Dr Al Aiban and members of the Kingdom's governmental rights body. The Saudi side briefed the US delegation on the kingdom's efforts at various levels to promote and protect human rights.
Arab Initiative
"The Kingdom has enacted several laws and introduced regulations in this respect," Dr Al Aiban said while drawing attention to the Arab Initiative, launched by King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, to establish peace and stability in the region as well as his initiative for inter-faith dialogue aimed at advancing peaceful co-existence between all religions and faiths.
The two sides also discussed a number of issues of mutual concern and they lauded the existing excellent bilateral relations between the two countries.
The talks come in the wake of complaints from many Saudis travelling to the United States of "humiliating" full body strip searches, including having to face a battery of questions on whether they are linked to terrorist organisations.
It is noteworthy that Ambassador Osama Naqli, head of the media department at the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, recently slammed the measures as an infringement on the dignity and rights of Saudis.
