RIYADH, March 15, 2010 -- A case of domestic abuse in the capital has once again raised the question: When is the appropriate time for police to enter a private home and intervene on an abusive relationship? The daily Al-Watan described in a report on Sunday a case of an Egyptian man who is now in custody on charges of harshly abusing his Algerian wife and the couple’s five children. The wife described the treatment as akin to “living in Abu Ghraib,” the notorious Iraqi prison. All five children were heavily bruised by the time they were taken to hospital. The eldest son was found to be suffering from an untreated broken arm. “He is very tough to deal with,” the Algerian wife, whose identity was withheld, told the newspaper. “One time he knocked me unconscious. I was tortured for more than five years. My husband started to torture me because he thought that I was having affairs with other men.”

The woman said her husband recently began directing his jealous rage at the children, torturing them until they affirmed his suspicions. The wife denied having had any affair. A few weeks ago, neighbors in Riyadh’s Al-Rawdah district began hearing screams of the children. A neighborhood committee was formed to study the issue. After a schoolteacher said the wife contacted her and begged to get her children freed, the committee contacted the authorities. After the police arrived, they told the concerned neighbors that there was nothing they could do, that the mother would have to go to a local police station and file a complaint. “The mother went to the police station the same day to file a complaint but the officer in charge refused to help her,” one of the neighbors told Al-Watan. “He advised her to come the next morning and go to court. This was a very strange behavior from the police.”

The mother, perhaps fearing for her life, spent the night with a friend and fretted over the fate of her children who were still at home with the father, who was holding them hostage. The neighborhood committee confronted the man, but he told them to go away and come back with the police if they could. The committee went to the police station and demanded the police do something. Finally the police went to the home and brought the father and children to the station. Despite seeing the children in bad shape, the police returned them to the custody of their abusive father, saying that only a judicial order could separate the children from their guardian. Again the committee confronted the man and persuaded him to allow the neighbors to clean up and feed the children. Meanwhile the mother went to the police again, and an officer recommended she take the children to a hospital. Finally, in the ER, the mother managed to get what she needed to spur police to do something: A medical report listing the injuries to the children. With the evidence of abuse that police were willing to accept, the father was arrested.

Now as a foreign woman in Saudi Arabia with no legal male guardian present, the Algerian wife was on her own. Fortunately, the neighbors chipped in to buy food — and to paint the interior of the home whose walls were covered with blood smears. The neighbors also provided 24-hour guard duty in case the police were to release the father. The case is still under investigation. The governmental National Society for Human Rights spokesman Mufleh Al-Qahtani said his organization is aware of the case and is trying to find a solution to the problem. He said that the Algerian Embassy might get involved. He also said that a Reconciliation Committee — a committee that aims to bring troubled spouses back together — could be brought in to mediate. Or, he speculated, the case might even go to criminal court.