GayandRight

My name is Fred and I am a gay conservative living in Ottawa. This blog supports limited government, the right of the State of Israel to live in peace and security, and tries to expose the threat to us all from cultural relativism, post-modernism, and radical Islam. I am also the founder of the Free Thinking Film Society in Ottawa (www.freethinkingfilms.com)

Saturday, April 03, 2010

Father keeps daughter in Saudi Arabia against her will...

Visiting Mecca can be dangerous....
Nazia Quazi has a Canadian passport and an Indian passport. But for the past three years she's been stuck in Saudi Arabia with neither piece of identification. Her passports and other travel documents have been confiscated by a most unlikely authority: Her father.

He refuses to give them back and even if he did, the 24-year-old woman would still be at his mercy in her bid to leave the Muslim country which has a law that says it is the father who is responsible for the actions of unmarried daughters.

Quazi's story begins in Ottawa, where she and her mother and brothers were living while she studied computer science at the University of Ottawa. It was here that she met her boyfriend, Bjorn Singhal, who was studying to become a pilot, and here that her conservative parents first expressed their disapproval when the relationship became serious.

In 2001, Quazi, her mother Shaheen Unnisa, and her two brothers left Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to emigrate to Canada in pursuit of Western educations for her and her siblings.

Her father's immigration forms, she says, were not in order so he never became a Canadian citizen and continues to work in Saudi Arabia.

The family is originally from India, but her father has worked in Riyadh for 25 years.

Quazi returned to Riyadh three years ago after a trip to India. Her father, Quazi Malik Abdul Gaffar, had convinced her to visit him for the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca known as Umrah. "He decided I was supposed to come to Saudi for Umrah, and be here for a week, and then go back."

She's been trying to get out of the country ever since.

"Once I got here, my dad took all of the documentation. Now I require his permission to leave the country and he's not ready to give it," she said.

3 Comments:

Blogger Mad Dog Gazza said...

Can't she go to the authorities and tell them she's overstayed her visa and is now in the country illegally?

No, wait, they'll behead her for going around without a male escort.

9:40 PM  
Blogger Sita said...

She could go to the Indian /Canadian Embassies.

11:45 AM  
Anonymous Shahla Khan Salter said...

Nazia Quazi has been asking for assistance from the Canadian embassy since January 1, 2008 and so far no one has been able to obtain her release. Deepak Obhrai told CBC Radio's Kathleen Petty on March 18th, 2010 that Canada cannot interfere in Saudi law and the Saudi's must find a way to convince the father to give his consent. We don't think this is the only option - if it is - we don't think this will likely happen as Nazia Quazi's father does not appear to be a reasonable man and has made death threats against myself and Katha Pollitt and been abusive to Nazia Quazi. Please check out our website at www.mpvottawa.com for a form letter to email to your MP to let him/her know that you are outraged that Nazia remains in Saudi. Thanks for posting this on your blog.

9:50 PM  

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