http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,329605,00.html

Two weeks before Yara, an American businesswoman, was arrested by
Saudi Arabia's religious police for sitting with a male colleague at
Starbucks, she said she strolled past the very same cafe with another
businessman: Neil Bush.

Bush, President George W. Bush's younger brother and CEO of the
education software company Ignite!, was in the Saudi capital, Riyadh,
speaking at an economic forum hosted by King Abdullah for hundreds of
influential business leaders.

Yara, who does not want her last name revealed because of safety
concerns, is a managing partner at a Saudi financial company. She went
to hear Bush speak, and she said she invited him later to tour her
company's offices, to give him a sense of what life was really like
for women living in the capital.

"I was boasting about Riyadh, telling him it doesn't deserve its bad
reputation," she said. "I told him I never experienced any harassment.
I'd had no trouble as a woman. It was business as usual."

But on Monday, Yara learned that she had been wrong. She was thrown in
jail, strip-searched, threatened and forced to sign false confessions
by the kingdom's "Mutaween" police.

"When I was arrested, it was like going through an avalanche," she
said. "All of my beliefs were completely destroyed."

Yara's crime: sitting with a male business partner in the
"family-only" section of the Starbucks -- the only area of the café
where women and men can sit together. In Saudi Arabia, public contact
between unrelated men and women is strictly prohibited.

Yara, who was born in Tripoli, Libya, to Jordanian parents, grew up in
Salt Lake City. She moved to Saudi Arabia eight years ago with her
husband, a prominent businessman.

The 37-year-old mother of three said she had an "all-American"
upbringing in Utah and lived most of her life in the U.S. before
moving to Riyadh.

She described herself as secular, and apolitical. "I am
anti-political," she said. "I have never advocated for anything in my
life."

She said she made a point of wearing an abaya and a headscarf, like
most Saudi women, "out of cultural respect."

"I observed the rules and tried not to stand out in business
settings," she said.

But on Monday, when the power failed in her company's offices, Yara
and her male colleagues decided to use a nearby Starbucks, which has
wireless Internet, as a temporary workspace.

She settled into a booth with a male colleague and opened her laptop.
Moments later, she was arrested.

"Some men came up to us with very long beards and white dresses. They
asked, 'Why are you here together?' I explained about the power being
out in our office. They got very angry and told me what I was doing
was a great sin," Yara recalled.

The men were from Saudi Arabia's Commission for Promotion of Virtue
and Prevention of Vice, a 10,000-strong police force charged with
enforcing dress codes, sex segregation and the observance of prayer
times.

Yara said they grabbed her mobile phone and pushed her into a taxi
bound for Riyadh's main prison. There she was interrogated,
strip-searched and forced to sign and fingerprint confessions of
guilt.

Later, she was made to stand before a judge who condemned her
behavior, telling her she would "burn in hell."

She said she spent hours in a filthy prison cell with dozens of other
women who had been arrested by the religious police, before her
husband used his political connections to secure her release.

She has since vowed to remain in Saudi Arabia and continue working,
but she says she will never return to Riyadh and now travels with a
bodyguard.

And her family is furious that the American Embassy hasn't done more
to support her.

An embassy official said her case was being treated as "an internal
Saudi matter" and would not offer further comment.

Starbucks was waiting to learn more about the facts surrounding the
incident, a company spokesman said.

"Starbucks was very concerned by reports that a customer was asked to
leave one of our stores and arrested," said Brandon H. Borrman, a
spokesman for the company.

"Starbucks takes pride in respecting different cultures, and as a
global company with locations in 44 countries, we recognize that
religious customs, social norms and laws will vary among the
communities where we work," he said.

Yara said she carries her American passport with her as a precaution.
But on Monday, she said, her identification was confiscated by the
religious police, who told her they didn't care about her citizenship.

She is taking medication to treat post-traumatic stress while she
recovers from her ordeal at her family's home in Jeddah.

"Thank God they did not harm her more," said her husband, Hatim.

"The psychological impact is beyond description," Hatim said. "She's
normally a very calm, stable woman. Now she's afraid to leave our
compound."

__________________
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. - FH

This is the downside to freedom of religion in the states.

I thought being in a Starbucks was like being at the US Embassy. US soil.

__________________
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. - FH

And her family is furious that the American Embassy hasn't done more to support her.
The stupidity of people never ceases to amaze me.
Yara? The State Department does nothing but placate foreign governments and assist their worst citizens into entering the U.S. under false pretenses.
Where on earth did you get the idea that they'd be some sort of advocate for you?

You're in a stone aged country run by madmen who pray to a false god. If you choose to place yourself in the den of the lion, then don't look for anyone else to come rescue you. You're on your own.

__________________
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

Please tell me you're not serious.

__________________
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

I'm pretty sure that only the Christian Heaven has Chai Latte...

... with a shot of espresso.

__________________
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. - FH