SAUDI ARABIA: A vegetable seller who sold produce on street corners of a poor Riyadh district burns himself to death after being sanctioned by the authorities for trying to ply his trade, his family says

Record ID: 189195

  • Title: SAUDI ARABIA: A vegetable seller who sold produce on street corners of a poor Riyadh district burns himself to death after being sanctioned by the authorities for trying to ply his trade, his family says
  • Date: 22nd May 2013
  • Summary: FAMILY MEMBER HOLDING UP PHOTOGRAPH OF MOHAMMED AL-HURAISI CLOSE OF PHOTOGRAPH VARIOUS OF IMAGES ON MOBILE PHONE OF MOHAMMED AL-HURAISI LYING ON HOSPITAL BED, BURNS VISIBLE ON BODY
  • Embargoed: 6th June 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Saudi Arabia
  • Country: Saudi Arabia
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAEMB6FEUSMKW0WPKDAC6UI00OP
  • Story Text: A vegetable seller self fire to himself in Riyadh last week because of his rising debts and constant run-ins with officials who stopped him hawking fruit and vegetables from the roadside, his father said on Monday (May 20).
    Mohammed al-Huraisi doused himself in petrol on May 15 and set himself alight after local officials told him he did not have permission to sell his produce from a pick-up truck on a street corner in a poor Riyadh neighbourhood, relatives said.
    Two photographs of Huraisi taken by family members show him lying, swaddled in bandages, surrounded by medical equipment and with burns visible across his face, in the hospital bed where he died later that day.
    His father, Ali al-Huraisi, said local officials had confiscated his son's identity papers during an earlier confrontation and sometimes confiscated his car and fined him.

    "Mohammed was vegetable seller who picked up vegetables from wholesalers' cold storage, sold them, and then paid the wholesalers for the goods. Sometimes the authorities came and confiscated his goods, so he was not able to make the payments to the wholesalers, and he would come home, leaving his family hungry," Ali al-Huraisi said.

    "He tried changing his location to sell the vegetables, but then the authorities came and confiscated his goods and his pick-up truck. He had to pay a 5,000 Riyals (1,300 USD) fine to get the impounded truck released. This son of mine suffered much and he was too patient, until the pressure of it all led him to burn himself to death," he added.
    The world's top oil exporter avoided the mass protests that brought down four Arab governments and destabilised two others with the help of increased social spending, pro-government sermons by powerful clerics and a ban on demonstrations.
    However, while the conservative Islamic kingdom and U.S. ally is richer than many other Middle East states, it suffers high youth unemployment and has in recent years seen the emergence of poverty among some of its citizens.
    The Huraisi family said they were also facing an issue of statelessness.
    While Saudi Arabia plays home to a large number of illegal immigrants, some of whom have lived in the kingdom for decades, it like other Gulf Arab countries also has many stateless Arabs, known as "bidoon", who have no nationality.
    They are often the descendants of people from nomadic tribes who were not officially registered when modern borders were set and nation states created last century.
    Relatives of Huraisi say the 45-year-old father of 11 was part of a large clan from Jizan Province on the kingdom's border with Yemen and that many of the family had been stripped of Saudi nationality decades ago.
    Their lawyer, Ahmed al-Rashid, said the authorities say they were always Yemeni rather than Saudi citizens.
    Whatever their original status, however, the family now lives in poverty with only temporary identity documents, leaving them unable to access good health care, jobs or education.

    "Originally, they were born and grew up in Jizan city. Their official documents and national ID cards were confiscated -- we went to the responsible authorities and then to the Administrative Court in Riyadh and, unfortunately, the court has not issued its final decision, there are still deliberations in this case," he said.

    "We demand of the authorities that they to address the legal and jurisdiction situation and to judge of the return of nationality to them; to return their nationality and not issuing a new status, because they have always been Saudis," he added.
    Ali al-Huraisi produced photocopies of his old Saudi national identification card and driving licence, which he said demonstrated he had once been officially registered as a Saudi citizen. They showed his date of birth as 1950.
    Huraisi senior said he had served for five years in the Saudi army as a military policeman.
    He still lives in the kingdom's south but came to Riyadh after the death of his son and is staying there in the small two-storey house.
    Mohammed al-Huraisi's brothers and sons, some of whom also sell fruit and vegetables in this way, say they are driven to work illegally because of their status as non-citizens.
    The lawyer, Rashid, said he had pushed several branches of the government for years to resolve their status, but without success.
    City officials were not immediately able to comment on the case.
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