Police Raid - My Terrifying Experience

A fortnight ago in the middle of the night, terror struck our neighborhood as police came in droves to conduct a raid. We were about to prepare some late night snack a when we heard a loud knock at the main door, then kicking followed accompanied by a chorus of shouts as if a mob has descended upon every terrified soul in the building. While nervously and stealthily peeping through the eyepiece, we can see men in casual clothing, some in their traditional garbs but not one in police uniform. 

Assuming no one was willing to open the door, shouts even grew louder and kicks turned harder they almost knocked it over. Then we decided it was for real. My flatmate asked defiantly albeit nervous "who are you?" They shouted back "it's the police" though we could not see anyone in uniform. My colleague even dared to ask why there was no one in uniform if they were indeed policemen. That didn't sit well with them sensing our reluctance to open the door. My colleague even told them to wait as he would call the building watchman to verify if these people were authorities as they claim to be and if they have permits to break into our apartments. Perhaps it further angered them that they kicked even harder so that we had no choice left but to open it.

As soon as the door opened, five or six of them sprinted down through all house crevices as if frantically looking for contrabands but eventually demanding us to provide our iqamas or residence permits. It was when two or three men in uniform surfaced that assured us the raid was sanctioned by the police. But if the raid came earlier in the week we would not have survived because we only have papers in our possession in lieu of our iqamas that were sent for renewal. And that terrifying episode happened barely four days into the receipt of our new iqamas.

It's funny because some of them cut a frustrated look upon knowing we were legitimate expatriates. I guess they assumed already we would be worthy additional to a busload of illegals they have snagged already. We came to know the raids were done simultaneously in select buildings marked from tipoffs. In the height of the commotion, some of them even noticed our cats that were frantically running to hide and they even asked us where did we get those. My colleague replied, "if you're wondering we have so many cats (9 in total) you should look around at the millions upon millions of cats starving in the streets".

It was then that they left and told us to close the door and as we still talked we can mostly women and some men being dragged down the stairs and being herded to the bus outside, women and even elderly men who were in crutches, all I assumed were illegals.

Oddly enough, when that episode we thought was over some ununiformed "policemen" decided to come back and entered the adjacent flats on the ground floor in stealth while bent over. The next morning we came to know from our building watchman that some smartphones, camera, and wi-fi unit also disappeared; tenants from another building also complained about missing laptops and smartphones during the night raid. To us, it's not surprising if illegals were inflicted double whammy: getting jailed and their belongings ransacked/seized for the culprits to divide the loot, that is.

After the dust has settled, we decided to check on the lovebirds that belong to the tenants of another apartment if they were still there. The fate of their owners was largely unknown to us so we decided to take them in. Until now the four budgies remain with us and in total we have now 13 mouths to feed which is a bit challenging but at the same time exciting. 

The entire experience was indeed terrifying but thank God for the protection when we thought we were safe in the confines of our home. We're still reeling from the trauma, but it served as a lesson that we will never forget. All the glory belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ for His wondrous deeds in our lives!

We Are Not Terrorists, We Are Photographers!

Last Saturday, the 7th of November, was one of my most dreaded days of my entire life, and one of the most humiliating, I might add. Me and my colleague were apprehended near my apartment by the local police here in Jeddah, just for taking a couple of pictures, including the picture you see below. If you look a little bit closer to the extreme right of the picture, you can even see the police car there. We were driving around the vicinity where I live, and taking photos on every potential subjects I see on the street to post in my photoblog, 'Camera Ni Cabrera'. I've been living in Saudi Arabia for almost 10 years now, so more or less, I know the do's and don'ts here, but sometimes things get a little bit out of hand,  especially with the police. Ridiculous!

Anyway, the police did not immediately arrest us, but unbeknownst to us they followed a few meters from where I took the photos and then tried to stop us when we were about to turn to a corner, I was asked to give them my Iqama, (an ID or small booklet given only to foreign workers to prove their legality), and my camera. While looking what was inside my camera, they were asking why I'm taking photos and what is it for, I told them that, it is a passion of mine to take photos of beautiful things, but it was to no avail, they don't speak nor understand English and my Arabic is so limited. My friend speaks fairly good Arabic, but even him could not get through them, they were just not listening to us. To make it short, they took everything, even our cellphones (so we can't call our boss to let them know about the predicament we're in), took the key of my car, handcuffed us together and throw us to the back of the police car. I was so scared almost to the point that I almost cried because of the fear that they might hurt us, deport us, or who knows what they are capable of doing, I know for a fact that Saudi Arabia in general don't actually have a good standing with the international communities when it comes to human rights issues.

When we arrived at the police station, they took off our handcuffs and put us inside the detention cell, where we saw some of the detainees who were already there, most of them were expatriates from south Asia. While inside, I felt a little uneasy and a little claustrophobic because of the size and the ventilation of the cell. After a few minutes, we were able to talk to one of the detainees there who happened to have a cellphone, so my friend asked him if he could kindly borrow the phone so that we could call someone from our office. After calling the office, the only thing for us to do was to wait for them to redeem us.

After 3 hours, we heard from the door saying "Filipini!" (the police was calling us), when we approached the door, the police outside gave us all our things except for the car key. That was the time I decided to take some pictures inside the cell.

After an hour and a half more, they let us out of the detention cell and gave me back my car key. And that was the time our HR told us that the police apprehended us because we were taking photos of the residential compound, (that was the wall where the bicycle is). Whatever the reason was, they shouldn't have confiscated our things and handcuffed us. It was so traumatic. We are not terrorists, we are photographers (kuno) .