Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva’s tourism office and political authorities are taking steps to calm the situation and in particular relations with Saudi Arabia after Geneva police confirmed 10 August that a Saudi Arabian man was beaten unconscious in Geneva and his credit cards stolen three weeks ago. Police spokesperson Jean-Philippe Brandt confirmed the news on Swiss radio station RSR. The confirmation followed strongly worded statements from Saudi Arabia’s consul general Nabil Mohamed Al-Saleh that police in Geneva have not done their job, accusations that he repeated Tuesday morning 11 August in an interview with Fribourg newspaper La Liberté. Other representatives of the Arab community in Geneva nevertheless said the situation must be kept in perspective, that Geneva does a good job of welcoming Arab tourists.
The information was not made public earlier, as part of regular police communiqués about attacks, and until today, 11 August, most of the information about the incident has surfaced via Saudi cable channel Al-Arabiya, which gave lengthy play this weekend to the story. It reportedly gave the impression that Gulf state citizens in Geneva are at the mercy of gangs from North Africa, the Balkans and the Caucasus.
Genève Tourisme’ s director, François Bryand, alarmed about Geneva’s image, has written a confidential letter to the Conseil d’état, Geneva’s government, for delivery today, 11 August, according to television station TSR. Meanwhile, according to Geneva newspaper DG, Laurent Moutinet, a member of the Conseil, has invited the Saudi Arabian consul general in Geneva, Nabil Mohamed Al-Saleh, to his office to discuss the matter.
The consul general, who was interviewed on RSR’s Forum programme, along with police officer Brandt, said that he thinks the police acted poorly in this case, and he and other Gulf state consuls intend to complain to the city government. He provided details about the incident that Geneva police and the city have not confirmed.
This work by genevalunch.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.
News story, GenevaLunch, 11 August 2009.
Filed under: Society
Tags: aggression, Al-Arabiya, cable tv, crime, gangs, Geneva police, Geneve Tourisme, Gulf state, Saudi Arabia
August 11th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Indeed Geneva is not like it use to be, just few years ago.
I moved to Geneva in 2002, and since than every year i saw decline in security, my bike got stolen even my car and I live in what we call it safe area.
I never saw a police circle the area after each incident to scar people off, nothing.
Repeatedly I was informed by my friends who got there homes robbed that Police arrives in 3 to 5 hours later.
But when you just park your car in non parking zone they come in heart beat, I got my driving Permit taken for one year I suffered because I live far from the center, all this because I didn’t change my national driving permit to suisse, ok my mistake but one year.
Ok they should do the same with others you deal drug we take your living permit, repeatedly we see police catching guys with drugs they take them away few weeks later we see the same person selling drugs near Mont Blanc parking business as usual.
We demand security for a city as small as Geneva we should be living in heaven.
Yours,
August 11th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
I arrived in Geneva last week to start a new job. I went to view a house for rent last Tuesday and it had an attempted break-in the day before with it’s front window smashed!! Then on Wednesday morning whilst walking to the office at 7.15 I had my wallet stolen by a pick-pocket outside the Four Seasons Hotel.
When I reported the incident to the police, they were dis-interested and only cared about ticking the boxes so that i can be another crime statistic!!
All this during my 1st week in Geneva!!! and am not even an Arab!
August 14th, 2009 at 10:45 am
This is a link about the last news for this story:
http://www.tdg.ch/geneve/actu/saoudien-agresse-saoul-insultait-clients-2009-08-13
The Saudi guys was drunk and he started to insulte customer and one of the guy slaped his face which is normal for my view.
August 14th, 2009 at 11:12 am
[...] television TSR (Fre) late Thursday carried an update which raises more questions concernin the much-publicized story of a Saudi tourist who was badly injured and then robbed in Geneva, appearing to give credence to initial police reports that the man had [...]
August 14th, 2009 at 11:28 am
See our latest story on this: you might be right about what happened, and you might not be – there is a lot of unconfirmed rumor floating around about this story and until some facts come out clearly it’s mainly innuendo. One thing is clear: the man was seriously injured.
August 18th, 2009 at 9:37 am
[...] city has been in the spotlight in recent days because of media attention over an incident involving a Saudi Arabian tourist who was badly injured in circumstances that remain unclear while the case is under [...]
August 18th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
I live in Dearborn, Michigan, which has one of the largest population of Arabs outside of the Middle East. They all act like sex starved animals. I can only imagine what a repressed millionaire Saudi must be like. Too bad. I hope to visit Switzerland some day. I hope it can solve its problems before I get there. I’d also like to apologize for my government’s interference with Swiss banking laws.
August 20th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
A old man was hit by a car by the train station the other day, the police turned up at least 15-20 minutes later, and they truly had no professional standing… I was not impressed!!
August 29th, 2009 at 12:30 am
Dear Vernon Dozier,
Your comment posted Aug 18th, we don’t use raciest comment we dont say arabs or black. We are humans and we live together in peace. we don’t use comment like this in Switzerland.
Actually you can go to jail in Switzerland for such comment, so I guess everyone here agrees keep you comment to your self.
Arab or not things like this happened to arabs and non arabs. We are trying to raise the issue to avoid such thing in the future we dont want Geneva to have crimes.
September 9th, 2009 at 6:54 am
It’s not racist to state the truth. It’s not racist to use the terms “Arabs” or “blacks”. If one can be sent to jail for speaking in Switzerland, maybe that’s why others haven’t commented.
Keep sharia law out of Switzerland, you anti-semite.