Pair wed at last after bride's three-year Saudi ordeal

Lovers were separated for three years when the would-be bride was kept against her will by her father in Saudi Arabia.

Newlyweds Nazia Quazi and Bjorn Singhal in Dubai yesterday. "Dubai is a place that's completely open," said Ms Quazi.

DUBAI // They were star-crossed lovers who were separated for three years when the bride was kept against her will by her father in Saudi Arabia. But the saga had a happy ending when the couple were reunited and married in Dubai. It is a story of love, patience and, ultimately, forgiveness. The case of Nazia Quazi and Bjorn Singhal attracted attention when Ms Quazi, a 24-year-old Canadian of Indian origin, published an online letter calling for help in getting out of Saudi Arabia.

The case became a cause célèbre for Canadian politicians. The lobby group Human Rights Watch (HRW) sent a letter to the Saudi commissioner for human rights, urging his government to allow Ms Quazi to leave the country. Ms Quazi and her new husband spoke yesterday of their desire to move on and forgive her parents for the separation and her suffering in Saudi Arabia. Ms Quazi, who was educated in Canada, left for Dubai in July 2007 with the aim of marrying Mr Singhal after they met in Ottawa.

She claimed to have suffered at the hands of both parents, in her account, sometimes enduring beatings by her father. The family objected to her marrying Mr Singhal because he was of a different caste and religion. Mr Singhal, formerly a Hindu, had converted to Islam. Ms Quazi is also a Muslim. When the family found out that Ms Quazi was in Dubai, they arrived in the city and took her away with the promise of eventually blessing the marriage.

After three months in India, she was taken to Saudi Arabia where her father worked, before having her Canadian documents taken away for three years. In January this year, HRW sent a letter to the chairman of Saudi Arabia's human rights commission, urging him to allow Ms Quazi to leave the kingdom. When HRW interviewed Ms Quazi last November, she told the rights watchdog that all of her identification - including her passport, driver's licence and credit cards - had been taken from her by her father. When she approached the human rights commission, she was told to respect her father's desire to protect her.

She also told HRW that Canadian embassy officials could not provide her with a limited validity passport because her only identification was a photocopy of a passport, and, in any case, her father's authorisation was required for her to leave the country. Her father had a "change of heart", Ms Quazi recalled, fuelled by worries that his daughter was getting older. "He wanted me to be happy, so he got me a ticket to come here. And both my parents really wanted me to get settled down and married," she said.

"When I actually saw it happening I started believing in them and trusting them," she added. When her parents started telling her that they would let her travel to Dubai, she said she did not believe them at first, and she was playing along to see how far it would go. When she finally reached Dubai in the early morning on May 10, her emotions almost got the better of her. "Oh, I was dying to actually hold him or hug him really hard, but I couldn't because of family values, and now that we're actually married it's really nice. I still can't believe it. I keep pinching myself and I keep pinching him."

Looking back at the time that she was held in Saudi Arabia, Ms Quazi said: "I actually forgot what freedom was. I was for three years in that closed environment. "Dubai is a place that's completely open. You can go to movie theatres." She said the most difficult thing she faced during her battle was the wait. "The hardest part was to wait for something to happen, that's what really killed me." That wait was punctuated with fleeting contact with Mr Singhal over the internet.

Still, Ms Quazi does not regret the experience. "I have come out as a very strong person. I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but I know for sure that I will be able to handle [it]." Even with her parents' blessing, the process was arduous. After arriving in the UAE on May 10, the couple had to undergo medical exams that took days to complete, before holding a wedding and reception on Monday.

"It was more than I expected. We had a blast and her parents joined us during the dance," said Mr Singhal, who works as a flight operations supervisor in Sharjah. Mr Singhal, 29, has few regrets over the lost three years, except the passing of his father. "I am sad my father who passed away wasn't here today," he said. Still, his father-in-law's new-found love is adequate for now. "He told me on the day of the wedding, "You are like my son, I put everything aside."

[e-mail] * With additional reporting by Haneen Dajani and Marten Youssef