I am not sure where Scott South ([#1] Saudi not as safe as claimed [/#], April 12) gets his statistics from but according to the Chicago Tribune , crime numbers, although on the decline, are still very high in America.

In 1999, the last year that crime reports have been out, there were 641 murders committed in Chicago. There were 937 in New York City. That makes it two and three murders happening daily in the respective cities, not one as claimed by the writer.

Apart from that, there were 6,062 sexual assaults happening in NYC, 26,644 robberies, 57,227 assault/battery crimes. This means that every hour, 10 people get either murdered, raped, robbed or assaulted in that great civilised city. And these were official, reported cases. And if taken as the entire nation as a whole, the figures will boggle the mind, prompting writer Michael Fumento to remark that the United States is still comparable to a World War I battlefield.

I never hinted that Saudi Arabia is a haven as far as crime is concerned, but I don't buy that, for example, there is anywhere near 26 thousand robberies happening in Saudi per year. In fact, I believe there is an increase in the crime rate in Saudi.

But then one should understand why. Twenty years ago when my grandmother went for her Haj, she reported that when the azan was called, shopkeepers would just leave their shop premises unlocked, unattended, and go to the mosque to perform their prayers, five times a day. Recently, with the influx of foreigners like Muslim Filipinos, Indonesians, Pakistanis and others coming to set up shops and premises in the holy city, this practice cannot be done anymore. And we know what kinds of secular laws these people have been subjected to for so long in their original countries.