Job Discussion Forums

[manonatrain]

UA 196/02 Fear for safety/Fear of Torture 27 June 2002
or ill-treatment

OMANDr Faiza Alani (f), Australian national


Australian national, Dr Faiza Alani has been held at the Seeb police station in
the capital Muscat since 26 June. She is reportedly being denied food, water
and toilet facilities. She has not been charged and has been denied access to
lawyers. Her passport was confiscated by the police in July 2001 and she has
previously been held in incommunicado detention and ill-treated.

Dr Faiza Alani is reportedly currently suing an Omani national, who claimed to
be a representative of the Ministry of Education in the United Arab Emirates
(UAE). She had responded to an advertisement in a local Australian newspaper
requesting academics to teach at a new university in the UAE at the end of
1999. She was interviewed and hired in Australia, but was reportedly told
shortly before she was due to fly out, that the university building was not
completed. She would have to teach in Oman for a short period until it was
ready.

She agreed to teach at a college in the town of Rustaq, north of Muscat, but
later found out that she had been deceived. The Omani national reportedly
received a commission from the Omani Ministry of Higher Education for every
foreign teacher he brought to the country and there was never a job for Dr
Alani in the UAE. He also occasionally withheld the allowances she was
entitled to. Following failed complaints to the Omani Ministry of Education, Dr
Alani decided to sue the man who had hired her in Australia.

Following this, the police in Rustaq began to pressurize her into dropping the
case. In July 2001, she was stopped and had her belongings, including her
passport and handbag, confiscated. She was said to have been taken to an
unknown location and kept there for several hours during which she was attacked
before being released. She was unable to return to Australia as her passport
was confiscated and found herself without a job as she was fired from the
college, without being told why.

On 8 May 2002, Dr Alani filed a case with an administrative court against the
police. Two hearings have taken place so far. The last one was held on 24 June
and was adjourned until October. When she left the court, the police asked her
to go the Seeb police station in Muscat, where she has been held since the
morning of 26 June.

[MacMahon]

Thats a sad twist of fate yet to meet an end. Bandit prototypes runs in the veins of every race and nation mind you, relating to ill intentioned dark characters. But thats where one can hopefully get some rights from those in the hot seat.
The authorities typically put the nail in the coffin with this response and warranted a post from amnesty no doubt. One wonders how the Dr. was duped in such a manner?

[MacMahon]

It seems I was sleeping on the finer points relating to this post.
However, in the general forum (one teachers time in the mid-east) there is a more informed response to this on the 2nd thread.