Families say Iranian teens were not raped

The families of two Iranian teens recently sexually abused in an airport in the Saudi city of Jeddah have reportedly said the two were not raped, but were sexually harassed by the Saudi security officers at the airport, an Iranian MP says.

An Iranian MP for the central city of Qom, Ahmad Amirabadi, told ISNA news agency that in a meeting between government officials and the family members of the two teenagers, the teens’ parents totally rejected reports that the 14- and 15-year-old boys had been “raped” by the Saudi security officers, and emphasized that they had rather been exposed to sexual harassment.

Amirabadi said the families also rejected reports that one of the two Iranian teens had attempted suicide.

Reports said Saudi officers sexually harassed the two Iranian teenage boys at the King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah two weeks ago. The Saudi officers’ inappropriate conduct prompted huge public outcry in Iran.

On Saturday, a group of Iranian demonstrators gathered in front of the Saudi Embassy in the capital, Tehran, in protest over the indecency, chanting anti-Saudi slogans and calling for the closure of the Embassy as well as the cancellation of Umrah Hajj pilgrimages by Iranians to Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

Top ranking Iranian religious authorities have also threatened to cancel the Umrah Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca if Saudi authorities do not take prompt action on the matter.

Meantime, a senior Iranian diplomat announced on Thursday that “the perpetrators of the sexual assault on the two teenagers have been identified and detained and are waiting for maximum punishment.”

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, said, “We are awaiting the issue and immediate implementation of a verdict on the most severe punishment for the perpetrators of the inhumane act.”