The young Saudi woman was screaming into the phone, begging her friend to help. “They want to force me. They want to take me to the airport. They told me to pack my bags. Please help! I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to go back.”
A group of Arab men had turned up at her unit in the northeast Melbourne suburb of Preston in a black Mercedes van and were ordering her to pack her bags and get on a flight to Saudi Arabia.
She had fled to Australia and was in the process of seeking asylum, having escaped a life of violence and sexual servitude in Saudi Arabia. She was forced to marry at the age of 11 and had her first child at around 13. Her name is Lolita, and even her name would be taken from her.
Lolita’s friend Ali* jumped in his car and sped to her flat, a short drive from his home. There he saw the black Mercedes van parked outside Lolita’s flat.
Three or four Saudi men were blocking Lolita from leaving. One approached him and threatened him in Arabic.
They had information about him and his family he believes could only have come from the Saudi embassy in Canberra.
He’s not heard from her since. He has had contact with one of Lolita’s cousins in Saudi Arabia, who told Ali that his side of the family had not heard from her but believed she was locked up in a Saudi jail. Ali says there is no way Lolita would have willingly returned to Saudi Arabia.
The federal government recently announced a raft of measures to fight the growing threat of foreign interference, with Clare O’Neil, who was home affairs minister at the time, describing them as a “world-leading package of reforms”. “Foreign interference is a complex problem and we are constantly working with our agencies to make sure that we are covering all possible avenues of attack,” O’Neil said.
While she was happy to spruik her new policies, she didn’t want to speak about the plight of Lolita. “As is longstanding practice, we don’t comment on individual cases,” a spokesman for the minister said in response to a long list of questions submitted by The Australian on Lolita’s apparent kidnapping and forced removal.
The office of Foreign Minister Penny Wong would not say whether there had been diplomatic contact with the Saudis to find out where Lolita was and whether she was safe. The office of Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, who oversees the federal police, did not respond to emails about the apparent kidnapping of a foreigner, and threats to others, in Melbourne.
The royal embassy of Saudi Arabia in Canberra was also mute, declining to respond to questions about what may have happened to one of its citizens.
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