Only if the truck was up on the footpath on that street corner.
Australia- Two sisters in their 20s found dead inside Sydney unit had been there lengthy time, Suspicious deaths, June 2022
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Not as far as I know. I wonder why a journalist has not obtained a copy. The building manager had a copy and read it out to the ABC BB journalists, which suggests the police had not impounded it.
Possibly. But the ABC and other reputable news outlets, such as the Sydney Morning Herald, said they had very little online presence or activity. I think I read the police are reported to have said that too. They would, one would think, be in a position to know as they took possession of the electronic devices found in the apartment.
The more that is emerging about who the police have and have not spoken to, that they have not translated their call for information into Arabic or engaged with the Saudi community in Sydney, the more it does look like the police have not been as diligent as they should have been. But translating appeals and government announcements into the languages of Australia's ethnic groups is not really a strong point of Australian governments. During the lock downs, many government announcements were translated by members of the respective communities. Or government employees had a crack at it and used google translate, with confusing and often hilarious results.
The 'crucial' tool police haven't yet used that could help solve the tragic case of Sydney's Saudi sisters
Mystery continues to surround the deaths of two Saudi-born sisters in Sydney. Information about the case translated into Arabic could be "crucial" to solving it, a local interpreter says.www.sbs.com.au
Unbelievable…they didn’t translate into Arabic yet?
This link was originally posted by bfew': "Why this woman feels a sense of responsibility for the Saudi sisters found dead in Sydney"
Assuming the person interviewed, Ms saffra is telling the truth, it is a really useful article, in that, if the report is correct, police have not been engaging with the community, such as by holding a information event, or translating appeals for information into Arabic or contacting people who had dealings with the young women. There are the various places they rented, including one with a person called Rita, who has spoken to journalists. Rita's house is the address used for the sisters' ABN application. Presumably someone sold them a car, and for that they need drivers licences. Did they learn to drive in Australia? Remember that in 2017 Saudi women were forbidden from driving.
But what is also of note are these points, IMHO:
1. Ms Saffaa, the Saudi woman interviewed in the article, had not met the Alsehli sisters. Yet, Ms Saffaa seems engaged with the Saudi women refugee community. This suggests the sisters were not part of that community.
2. Saffaa said she had seen unsubstantiated claims on Saudi social media alleging the women were part of a network that helped women escape Saudi Arabia. This is an important line of inquiry and might provide a motive for murder. It would also mean that handing the sisters electronic devices back to their family would endanger other women in such a network. I hope the Police have thought of that.
3. The sydney Saudi community wanted to assist, but police did not take up the offer: "
[Ms Saffra] said she had tried to contact Burwood Police Station to ask for a community briefing but police were dismissive. “When the community reached out to the police, they didn’t give us the time of day,” she said. “When news came out, people in the community asked me to contact the police and [police] weren’t helpful. They were dismissive. I called for days trying to offer the community’s help, but there was no call back. It wasn’t a good experience.”
4. Following the deaths of the sisters, fear permeates the Saudi community in Sydney: "Saffaa, said she had spoken with a few members of Sydney’s Saudi community since the sisters' deaths and there is a notable fear among them. "There is a sense of fear and unsafety, they don't feel safe.”
5. Saffaa said no one in the community she had spoken with believes the sisters died by suicide. The reason is based on what people believe people who commit suicide do, rather than "hard evidence": "You don't die of suicide in separate rooms with your sister … Wouldn't you want to be, in your final hours and minutes, with your sister in the same room?” However, as noted previously in this threat, people who take their own lives often act in ways that seems inconsistent with the point of the act. Many do not leave notes, for instance. My point is that investigators must be very careful with projecting their own assumptions and evaluations onto a case. An example in the US is that for years people believed that serial killers were only white males and then a bunch of non Caucasian serial killers turned up and so too a couple of females.
[Continues....]
Assuming the person interviewed, Ms saffra is telling the truth, it is a really useful article, in that, if the report is correct, police have not been engaging with the community, such as by holding a information event, or translating appeals for information into Arabic or contacting people who had dealings with the young women. There are the various places they rented, including one with a person called Rita, who has spoken to journalists. Rita's house is the address used for the sisters' ABN application. Presumably someone sold them a car, and for that they need drivers licences. Did they learn to drive in Australia? Remember that in 2017 Saudi women were forbidden from driving.
But what is also of note are these points, IMHO:
1. Ms Saffaa, the Saudi woman interviewed in the article, had not met the Alsehli sisters. Yet, Ms Saffaa seems engaged with the Saudi women refugee community. This suggests the sisters were not part of that community.
2. Saffaa said she had seen unsubstantiated claims on Saudi social media alleging the women were part of a network that helped women escape Saudi Arabia. This is an important line of inquiry and might provide a motive for murder. It would also mean that handing the sisters electronic devices back to their family would endanger other women in such a network. I hope the Police have thought of that.
3. The sydney Saudi community wanted to assist, but police did not take up the offer: "
[Ms Saffra] said she had tried to contact Burwood Police Station to ask for a community briefing but police were dismissive. “When the community reached out to the police, they didn’t give us the time of day,” she said. “When news came out, people in the community asked me to contact the police and [police] weren’t helpful. They were dismissive. I called for days trying to offer the community’s help, but there was no call back. It wasn’t a good experience.”
4. Following the deaths of the sisters, fear permeates the Saudi community in Sydney: "Saffaa, said she had spoken with a few members of Sydney’s Saudi community since the sisters' deaths and there is a notable fear among them. "There is a sense of fear and unsafety, they don't feel safe.”
5. Saffaa said no one in the community she had spoken with believes the sisters died by suicide. The reason is based on what people believe people who commit suicide do, rather than "hard evidence": "You don't die of suicide in separate rooms with your sister … Wouldn't you want to be, in your final hours and minutes, with your sister in the same room?” However, as noted previously in this threat, people who take their own lives often act in ways that seems inconsistent with the point of the act. Many do not leave notes, for instance. My point is that investigators must be very careful with projecting their own assumptions and evaluations onto a case. An example in the US is that for years people believed that serial killers were only white males and then a bunch of non Caucasian serial killers turned up and so too a couple of females.
[Continues....]
[Continued]
6. Failure of police and media to understand cultural norms: Saffaa said that [the sisters avoiding conversation] may have been due to to their Saudi upbringing. In traditional Saudi culture, women are raised to not overly interact with men who are not their father, brother, or husband. This may also explain why they appeared fearful and timid when the plumber and so on visited. [I suspect that this may not be the case for the sisters: They worked in road construction and would have had contact with "blokes" and had to talk to them. Also at TAFE they would also have had to interact with males. Not one journalist has reported, AFAIK, any comments from co-workers or fellow students.]
7. Failure of police and media to understand cultural norms: Welfare checks. “One thing I’m surprised about is when they do these welfare checks, when you come from a refugee or asylum seeker background, especially from Saudi Arabia, you have a huge mistrust of authority... Welfare checks should not be conducted by police or anyone in a uniform...Welfare checks should be done by mental health professionals, people who are trauma-informed, someone in the community, someone who knows them”, Saffaa said.
This is quite right. The Saudi state has a highly efficient and brutal internal security apparatus, known in English as Saudi Mabahith. They are feared. I know from speaking to asylum seekers from the Middle East who have emigrated into the West, that seeing a couple of police, with their side arms and dressed in near black uniforms, will scare the daylights out of people, particularly if you think that the very people you are trying to escape have tracked you down or you are awaiting a decision on your asylum claim. Recall the ABC BB program in which the reporters said the sisters feared some male relatives.
6. Failure of police and media to understand cultural norms: Saffaa said that [the sisters avoiding conversation] may have been due to to their Saudi upbringing. In traditional Saudi culture, women are raised to not overly interact with men who are not their father, brother, or husband. This may also explain why they appeared fearful and timid when the plumber and so on visited. [I suspect that this may not be the case for the sisters: They worked in road construction and would have had contact with "blokes" and had to talk to them. Also at TAFE they would also have had to interact with males. Not one journalist has reported, AFAIK, any comments from co-workers or fellow students.]
7. Failure of police and media to understand cultural norms: Welfare checks. “One thing I’m surprised about is when they do these welfare checks, when you come from a refugee or asylum seeker background, especially from Saudi Arabia, you have a huge mistrust of authority... Welfare checks should not be conducted by police or anyone in a uniform...Welfare checks should be done by mental health professionals, people who are trauma-informed, someone in the community, someone who knows them”, Saffaa said.
This is quite right. The Saudi state has a highly efficient and brutal internal security apparatus, known in English as Saudi Mabahith. They are feared. I know from speaking to asylum seekers from the Middle East who have emigrated into the West, that seeing a couple of police, with their side arms and dressed in near black uniforms, will scare the daylights out of people, particularly if you think that the very people you are trying to escape have tracked you down or you are awaiting a decision on your asylum claim. Recall the ABC BB program in which the reporters said the sisters feared some male relatives.
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I wonder if it bodes down to the same bureaucratic situation. To be honest, all of us could translate into our mother tongues, but I strongly believe that the governmental organizations can not use non-accredited translators. Accredited translators cost money, and if the money has not been budgeted into the initial plan, paperwork needs to be filled in. Paperwork takes time...Ironically, newspapers could probably post small bullets in Arabic in the end of their articles, all better than nothing. Or maybe, there are local newspapers published by the communities (something you would usually find in ethnic food stores). They can be approached and probably would gladly translate the call into Arabic and post it. They are usually cross-Muslim cultural, and would reach the target populations sooner, as one can find them in local Muslim-frequented places.
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Now, the simplest question: how many Muslims speak, or read Arabic?
The answer is from 20 to 37%, depending on the source.
(BTW, one of my kids speaks five languages, including Turkish. Then he decided to learn Arabic. He stopped soon but said that written Arabic was easier than spoken, but very difficult, logically).
So...in the Muslim world, in general, nr 2 language is English, nr 3, Urdu.
If the girls were not close to SA community, they still might have frequented other Islamic groups. I think, ethnic stores. Turkish has been mentioned. In my neighborhood, there are Indian food stores that are frequented by Pakistani, or vise versa. Like any church - there are mosques that are considered conservative or liberal. I’d ask the owners of local community newspapers (in Urdu, Hindi, Mandarin, Arabic) to post ads and just leave them in the local food stores. Maybe visit a more liberal mosque. (There is a huge difference. Even in attitude to suicide).
A community effort could help.
P.S. I googled languages spoken in Sydney
The most common languages other than English are: Mandarin, Arabic, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Italian and Greek.
Also, Spanish, Korean, Hindi.
I’d ask owners of local gazettes in all these languages to post the appeal. Something tells me it won’t cost anything but might reach the target audience.
The answer is from 20 to 37%, depending on the source.
(BTW, one of my kids speaks five languages, including Turkish. Then he decided to learn Arabic. He stopped soon but said that written Arabic was easier than spoken, but very difficult, logically).
So...in the Muslim world, in general, nr 2 language is English, nr 3, Urdu.
If the girls were not close to SA community, they still might have frequented other Islamic groups. I think, ethnic stores. Turkish has been mentioned. In my neighborhood, there are Indian food stores that are frequented by Pakistani, or vise versa. Like any church - there are mosques that are considered conservative or liberal. I’d ask the owners of local community newspapers (in Urdu, Hindi, Mandarin, Arabic) to post ads and just leave them in the local food stores. Maybe visit a more liberal mosque. (There is a huge difference. Even in attitude to suicide).
A community effort could help.
P.S. I googled languages spoken in Sydney
The most common languages other than English are: Mandarin, Arabic, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Italian and Greek.
Also, Spanish, Korean, Hindi.
I’d ask owners of local gazettes in all these languages to post the appeal. Something tells me it won’t cost anything but might reach the target audience.
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I too had been wondering if there was something really "left field" here.
The Saudi state is a religious-political state and the control of women is not only seen as a religious matter, but a political matter. Undermining this religiously justified patriarchy there is as much a political crime as it is a religious crime. The Saudi state puts much effort into disrupting individuals and groups who assist women to flee. These efforts are not only expended internally, within the kingdom, but externally. They have successfully co-opted officials and governments in other countries, such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines as is shown by the women who are intercepted and returned to Saudi Arabia, never to be heard from again.
And in recent years (from about 2012), I have read, that the state does have women involved in these activities of repression.
So, the first wild thought was this. The Alsehli sisters were sent (in which case they were witting) or permitted (in which case, they were used) to come to Australia as a means of identifying those individuals and organisations involved in assisting women to flee. Once in Australia, the sisters had a change of perspective and decided they liked to decadent West and wanted to emigrate. they lodged asylum applications. This used to happen to the Soviets and it still does happen to repressive countries like Russia and China, whose operatives in the West defect from time to time.
The sisters' handlers were none too impressed and began a campaign of intimidation. this culminated in wither their murder, faked to make it look like suicide) or actual suicide from despair because their application was taking so long - it had been over four years.
Now for the second wild thought. The Australian government realised what the Saudis were playing and, in an effort to keep on the Saudis good side (there is much trade involved), delayed processing the application in the hope the sisters would leave, be kidnapped and taken back to the kingdom or do something that would justify their deportation.
It does seem that four years to process a very simple application is excessive and that the Australian government was dragging the chain. Deliberately.
The Australian government has form. There is the case of Rahaf Mohammed, a young Saudi woman who, in January, 2019, was fleeing to Australia. She was intercepted in Thailand at the airport having been tricked by airline officials. Rahaf barricaded herself in a room, he plight was publicised by an ABC reporter, and the UN became involved. Finally, Canada granted her asylum. Rahaf originally applied to Australia, but it was very clear the Australian government was dragging the chain in an effort to prevent her receiving asylum in Australia, fielding increasingly bizarre excuses for not processing her application. The government seemed unworried that if she returned to Saudi Arabia, she would be brutalised if not actually killed. They then repeated this with a large number of Afghanis who assisted Australia during the Australian involvement in Afghanistan. These people have suffered persecution and some have been killed by the Taliban.
I agree. The NSW government, like all Australian state governments, and the Federal (National) government have a large number of accredited translators - as employees and also as contractors. Because Arabic is a frequently spoken language in Australia, and because of Australia's involvement in Afghanistan and the middle east, there are many Arabic translators and linguists proficient in Arabic and other middle eastern languages. Finding someone to translate the police appeal and information into the languages of the middle east, would not be a problem.
The failure to do this from the start is a failure of imagination and planning by the investigating officers. And intellectual laziness.
Wow! What a talented family. You must be very proud. And rightly so.
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Thank you! He believes that the only way to learn is through a native speaker, a girlfriend, or a roommate. ))
I could understand a delay of a few days while they found a reputable translator, but to only just be doing it now is rather incompetent. Even worse if they haven't engaged with the Saudi community.
Unfortunately I'm not entirely surprised, I live in another state but during Covid we had a lot of problems with translating key information. First it wasn't done, then it was done, but it was done so poorly that there were many mistakes in the translations. In the end you had community members volunteering as translators of key messages and setting up their own networks to disseminate the information - which is great, but should have been handled much more efficiently by the state Govt.
It seems to me that a lot of agencies in Australia lack some really basic knowledge/common sense about dealing with CALD communities and it has really unfortunate consequences.
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Very intriguing post! Actually purchased Rahaf Mohammed's book Rebel this week with an eye to a greater understanding of this case.
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I think the police may have instructions to do the bare minimum to find out what happened. Suicide suits everyone better than the idea that SA could be involved.
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''Suicide sisters refused visas to stay in Australia
The Saudi sisters found dead in their beds in their Sydney apartment applied – and were rejected – for permanent protection visas.''Aug 9 2022
Saudi sisters found dead in flat 'believed private eye followed them'
The mysterious death of the Saudi sisters who were found dead in their Sydney flat continues to throw up new twists as it emerges they believed a private investigator was following them.
''Two weeks ago police released the names and photos of the two women at the request of the coroner but did not translate their English language appeal for information.
The newly translated request has been sent out on social media and will be distributed to Arabic-language media outlets.
Police told SBS this was a standard practice without commenting specifically on the case of the Alsehli sisters.
'Translating media releases into target languages to reach specific communities is just one of the strategies the NSW Police Force adopts based on the requirements of detectives investigating cases,' a NSW Police spokesperson said in a statement to SBS.
'That is something the NSWPF (NSW Police Force) does often, again, based on the strategy that police are deploying at the time.' ''
websleuth1111
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Wow. How does that even happen. You’d think any female applying from countries like SA would be approved. I wonder if there’s meddling further up''Suicide sisters refused visas to stay in Australia
The Saudi sisters found dead in their beds in their Sydney apartment applied – and were rejected – for permanent protection visas.''
Aug 9 2022
''Police are now turning to the Arabic-speaking community for help as they make their first direct appeal in that language.''Saudi sisters found dead in flat 'believed private eye followed them'
The mysterious death of the Saudi sisters who were found dead in their Sydney flat continues to throw up new twists as it emerges they believed a private investigator was following them.www.dailymail.co.uk
''Two weeks ago police released the names and photos of the two women at the request of the coroner but did not translate their English language appeal for information.
The newly translated request has been sent out on social media and will be distributed to Arabic-language media outlets.
Police told SBS this was a standard practice without commenting specifically on the case of the Alsehli sisters.
'Translating media releases into target languages to reach specific communities is just one of the strategies the NSW Police Force adopts based on the requirements of detectives investigating cases,' a NSW Police spokesperson said in a statement to SBS.
'That is something the NSWPF (NSW Police Force) does often, again, based on the strategy that police are deploying at the time.' ''
In my experience (lawyer, have volunteered with refugees/asylum seekers), it is EXTRAORDINARILY difficult to get humanitarian visas in Australia. You would think any female applying from a country like SA would be approved, but it couldn't be further from the truth. Some of the stories I could tell you about women and others being denied protection when their lives were CLEARLY in danger is heartbreaking. I'm talking people being returned to countries where they had seen family members killed by the Government in front of them and where the same Government forces knew of them. I had to stop volunteering because I simply couldn't bear the deep injustice of it all. If these sisters did take their own lives due to their visas being rejected, then I am so sad to hear of yet another victim of Australia's cruel, heartless and shameful humanitarian program.
MOO
MOO
websleuth1111
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Do you think they are refused due to the criteria being impossible to meet or does Aus govt not want to upset the countries these women come from?
The latter.
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