A Saudi in marathon reason enough for being a suspect!

For the first 12 hours or so following Monday's bombings, media attention was focused on one 20-year-old Saudi guy who happened - as one law enforcement officer described it - to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The guy was near the blast and ran just like everyone else. His clothes smelled like gunpowder, just like everyone else in close proximity to the explosion.

What made him stand out was several bystanders had noticed him previously and thought he had acted suspicious. Although suspicion in some people's mind may simply be the result of the fact that they probably saw for the first time a Saudi running. When the man started running, he was chased down, tackled and handed over to the police.
Improvised bombs. Death. Destruction. Dark-skinned male in his 20s. Hmm. Must equal Saudi.

I don't condemn the police and the FBI. They're doing their job under the most difficult circumstances. It's regrettable that law enforcement ransacked the Saudi's apartment and interrogated his roommate, who could barely hold himself together when the media descended on him for comment and asked whether he was living with a killer. Fox News speculated whether the Saudi was in the US on a student visa, and perhaps his student status was a "front" for some nefarious purpose.

It turns out that he was attending the New England School of English in Harvard Square. Last May, my husband and I enrolled my niece at the school. We spent the week sorting out paperwork with the school's administrators, setting up her classes and talking with her new classmates who came from dozens of different countries to learn English in preparation for gaining admission to Boston area colleges and universities.

One day, we ran into a group of Saudi guys from the school. They have us tips on where to find an apartment. If I learned anything that week, it was that the Saudi students - actually, all international students - at the school were serious about their studies. They desperately wanted admission to a university because they were impatient to begin their studies. One visit to the school pretty much puts to rest the issue of using a student visa as a front for doing something illegal.

There is no excuse for fanning the flames of hate by suggesting during the most emotional and tense hours after the bombing that an Arab was in custody for the bombings. In reality, he was treated at a nearby hospital, questioned along with hundreds of other witnesses, and eventually sent on his way.

Yet The New York Post and CBS News, among other news agencies, latched on to the story because it provided in the minds of the editors tangible evidence that only Islamic extremists could be responsible for such a horrific event.
Islamic extremists could be responsible. So could right-wing, anti-US government domestic extremists. Or a single person with a grudge against the government because it was tax day for all Americans. Who knows? It will come out eventually, but reckless speculation in the immediate aftermath of the bombings of an Arab perpetrator cements in the minds of many Americans that Islam had something to do with these murders. Add insult to injury of the Fox News contributor who suggested on the air to "kill all Muslims" and we have a recipe for generating mass hysteria.

To the Americans' credit, they didn't take the bait from The Post and CBS. It doesn't matter to many Bostonians who the killer is. What's important was comforting the families of the dead and caring for the injured. They are letting the police and the FBI do their jobs. And once this individual, or these individuals, are apprehended, regardless of their ethnicity or religion, they will pay the price for their crimes.

Saudis are sickened by acts of mass murder in the name of religion. There is no room for these heinous, misguided acts in Islam. People who commit such crimes know this. That's why here in Saudi Arabia we call them "deviants." They have chosen to stray from the right path. And we stand with the US in eliminating these crimes.

sabria_j@hotmail.com

Kazinform cites ARAB NEWS SABRIA S. JAWHAR.