I’m drawn to the show “Locked Up Abroad” because I love to travel, and it gives the viewer a true account of someone’s visit to another country. I certainly always keep in mind the title, “Locked Up Abroad” and know that none of these visits are going to be positive for the traveler, but mostly I just watch because its interesting to see new areas and the conflicts that travelers can encounter there.
Most of the episodes involve kidnappings, thefts, assaults and drug smuggling. Not particularly happy topics, but its always interesting to see the laws and justice systems of other countries…through someone else’s eyes. An episode I watched today was drastically out of the ordinary for this show. The traveler wasn’t trying to bring cocaine back to America in his suitcase, and she certainly wasn’t a European kidnapped on a backpacking trip through Columbia. This traveler was a Scottish homosexual man, who ended up traveling to Saudi Arabia to use his nursing skills to provide a better financial standing for his family back in Scotland. He decided to travel with a fellow nurse, who was a young female.
Upon arrival, the two were given a ride to their new homes. He stated that they would not let him live with his friend because she was female, even though they never had a sexual relationship and never would. While entering the cab, they made her sit in the back and him in the front. At the hospital, the man met another male nurse from Europe who told him he was also gay. The first words he said to him were, “Welcome to hell,” and he told the man that if he was seen having a relationship with another man or if he was even suspected of being homosexual, he would be sentenced to jail time or even executed. He advised that the internet sites for gay men were monitored, so meeting a partner online was very risky. He was then advised about the “Ministry of Virtue” a group of Saudi religious police who punished people for not following the rules of Islam correctly. He said that if the man was caught and accused of being gay, he would be raped or killed by these men.
To make a long story short, the man’s phone and internet were monitored by the Saudi government, and the male nurse was arrested in public by the “Ministry of Virtue” and was taken to jail. This episode made myself, and I’m sure every other person who saw it, question the real “virtue” behind these people’s religion. A group of men can rape a man as punishment for being homosexual? That is just as inhumane as terrorism. What kind of freedom is involved in the people’s phones and internet being monitored? What kind of women’s rights make her sit in the back of the van? What kind of health system says that if a woman is dying and needs immediate attention, a man can not tend to her needs because he may see her bare body? It’s no wonder Saudi Arabia isn’t among the world’s favorite tourist destinations.
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