Port Elizabeth - As siblings Huda and Waliyullah Desai walked out of a Saudi Arabia prison to return home to South Africa, they left half of their hearts behind them as their two siblings Yumna and Waseeyullah remain jailed.
Emotional scenes were witnessed as the siblings were greeted by family, friends and and a large group of community members who gathered at the Port Elizabeth Airport on Monday and welcomed them home to the sounds of “Allahu Akbar” [God is the greatest].
The four siblings had been detained by Saudi authorities at the Zahban military prison since November 22, allegedly for security reasons.
Speaking to the media 32-year-old Huda broke down in tears and said the most challenging part was leaving her younger sister, Yumna, 26, behind.
Emotional scenes as the siblings arrive @AfriNewsAgency pic.twitter.com/OuYEotxScT
— Raahil Sain (@raahil_sain) October 10, 2016
“The hardest part of this whole thing was leaving my baby sister in the cell and closing the door in her face, leaving her and coming back home and the same for my baby brother, it was really really difficult,”
Huda said that she was stripped of everything while at prison and the only thing that remained was her “faith in God”.
Community members gather at the PE airport for arrival of the siblings who were detained in Saudi @AfriNewsAgency pic.twitter.com/WumV8oxERd
— Raahil Sain (@raahil_sain) October 10, 2016
“My little daughter, it’s been 11 months since I last spoken to her or seen her. She refuses to talk to me or hug me. I think when we talk about human rights this is something that we should take up in the future.I’m very angry today, Saudi Arabia is a country that I love dearly, my daughter is [Saudi Arabian] and her forefathers were previous rulers and I think the country belongs to me and her today,” she said.
Huda added that the prison manager had approached her in recent weeks to tell her that she was “innocent” but was being held because someone had reported her on a “big scale report”.
Huda’s father, a prominent Islamic teacher, 66-year-old Nazier Desai, said that while the family was excited for their return, their happiness was tainted with anxiety and fear while his other two children remained jailed.
The father of 10 said that they were told his remaining two children would be released soon but they were not given an exact date.
“From day one they have been illegally and wrongfully arrested, they have been reported falsely. From day one they have been telling the children ‘we acknowledge we made a mistake, we wrongfully arrested you and soon you will go home’ that soon manifested in one year of detention.”
Desai said that there were no charges against his children and the siblings were detained in line with a security act.
“In the Saudi legislation there is what they term a security act, now that security act is very vague. In our terms let me put it to you this way, if I said something that I disagree with the government, according to that security act you can be arrested and imprisoned for one year without legal representation, nor were you even allowed to appear before a magistrate, in my children’s case it’s exactly the same,”said Desai.
“They did not inform us to tell us in advance these children are coming home. The night they put them onto a plane they didn’t even tell the children, phone your parents and tell them you can go home. So unfortunately this is the system that we have.”
Desai said the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) tried to assist but the process deadlocked and matters were left in the family’s hands.He said that the Saudi government were accommodating in that they allowed him to visit for 30 days on two occasions.
Younger daughter, 19-year-old Safa Desai, said that while she was filled with mixed emotions, the family accepted the situation came from God.
“They didn’t know what freedom was and we could live in freedom. We had to think when we are eating they are not eating what we are eating, they don’t see light. Words can’t describe how I am feeling, it’s very overwhelming. We spent both Eids without them it was very disheartening but this is from God and we accept it and it made us stronger,” she said.
African News Agency