This day in 2017, Dina vanished off the face of the earth
Who is she?
Every woman who ever tried to flee abuse; everyone who ever wanted freedom.
She SO nearly made it;
but powerful men conspired against her.
Then people just…forgot.
But I can’t. 1/8
Saudi Arabian #DinaAli was being abused by family members.
She couldn’t take it anymore. For months, she planned her escape. She would fly to Australia, seek asylum, & start a new, free life.
Aged 24, she gathered her courage, got away from her family, & made it as far Manila 2/
But her family, who are well-connected, made some calls.
And shockingly,@MIAAGovPH staff TOOK HER PASSPORT FROM HER.
Desperate, afraid, she was still not prepared to give up.
Dina approached Canadian Meagan Kahn in Ninoy Aquino Airport’s transit lounge,& asked to use her phone 3/
Meaghan said:
‘Dina was sitting across from me eating a sandwich. Suddenly I saw a change in her face. She just totally lost every single emotion; a completely terrified look appeared on her face. She said 'Meagan- they're here. My uncles.’ 4/8
Dina was forced to talk to her uncles, who surrounded her. Meagan took photos (below): one of the men jumped up and shouted at her to stop, trying to take her phone from her
5/
Meagan refused to hand over her phone.
Eventually she had to catch her own connecting flight but she posted the video of Dina.
Some time later, witnesses say the tiny young woman was ‘wrapped up like a mummy’ in a blanket, gagged with tape & dragged onto a plane back to Saudi 6/8
NOTHING has been heard of her since. Saudi authorities claim she was held in a detention centre there- travelling without a male guardian being illegal.
Since then, silence.
I won’t forget her or stop talking about her. I mark this day every year.
Please remember #DinaAli
7/8
And please RT this thread and ask @MojKsa_EN to reveal her fate.
We will not forget our sister.
They said they weren’t political; just wanted to help victims.
They lied on both counts.
Soon she started to hear Islamophobic comments. Some of her abusers were (nominally) Muslim, but she knew no race or religion was to blame.
White men abused her too.
She became alarmed
2/
-Who had she fallen in with?
-How could she extricate herself safely?
She asked, politely, that they didn’t racialise her story, which they were exploiting mercilessly. ‘Don’t pretend it was just one group’, she said.
The @C4Dispatches programme on the Royal rip off is required viewing for us all.
But WHY wheel out Baroness Margaret Hodge as a talking head?
Where is HER moral authority here?🧵
The Stemcor heiress has been accused of hypocrisy over her own multimillion financial dealings 1/
And have we just forgotten her DISGRACEFUL behaviour as Islington Council leader over the child abuse scandal?
Hodge ‘was aware of previous, horrendous child sex abuse in the care homes for which she was responsible, & did nothing about it.’
Worse? She SMEARED A VICTIM.
2/
In an open letter to the BBC after it investigated horrifying abuse (forced child prostitution, torture, even alleged murders), Hodge libelled one of its victims as ‘seriously disturbed’
Demetrious Panton is a lawyer who was abused in a children’s home by two staff members 3/