Americans have learned a number of disturbing things about Saudi Arabia since September 11. We suspect, however, that many still would be shocked to learn that our Saudi allies are holding nearly a hundred American citizens, mainly women and children, against their will. Those held are not criminals, but rather kidnapping victims prevented from leaving Saudi Arabia by laws requiring a husband’s or father’s written permission to exit the country.

Today, the House Government Reform Committee will try to bring attention to the Saudi government’s abuses, and shine a spotlight on the Department of State, which for fear of rocking the Saudi-U.S. boat has not sent so much as a strongly worded letter to the regime in Riyadh to publicly demand the release of American citizens. The committee, chaired by an Indiana Republican, Dan Burton, will hear testimony from victims of these kidnappings, such as Pat Roush, whose daughters continue to be held by their Saudi father, and Dria Davis, a young girl who daringly escaped Saudi Arabia at the age of 13. Their story was told yesterday in a chilling dispatch by William McGurn in The Wall Street Journal.

Ms. Roush, an American, married Khalid Gheshayan in 1978 and had two daughters with him, Alia and Aisha. After the couple divorced in 1985, Mr. Gheshayan abducted the girls and fled to Saudi Arabia. An arrest warrant was issued within three days, but after an initial flurry of activity, the American government largely gave up trying to recover the girls. The father initially allowed State Department visits to the girls, but quickly cut those off. Currently, the State Department does not even know the whereabouts of the older daughter, Alia, who has been married off to an unidentified man.

Dria, an American citizen now in her mid-teens, was abducted by her father in 1997 and held in Saudi Arabia against her will. Her father attempted to cut her off from friends and family in America, convert her to Islam, and force her into marriage. Dria, however, managed to make calls to her mother in America, describing the abuse she was suffering and plotting her escape. When her mother realized that the American embassy in Saudi Arabia was going to refuse to help, she paid $180,000 for rescuers to retrieve her daughter. After being dropped off at school one April day in 1999, Dria bolted and got picked up by the two men her mother had hired. Posing as one of their wives, she passed into Bahrain and eventually to freedom.

During the hearing, the committee will hear tapes Dria’s mother made of her daughter’s phone conversations while she was in captivity. On these tapes Dria tearfully recounts verbal abuse from her father and expresses fear for her life. The committee may also hear a videotape made by an American named Monica Stowers who refuses to leave Saudi Arabia until her daughter Amjad is able to leave. The daughter is trapped because her father refuses to consent to her returning to Amer ica. While neither of these tapes nor any of the testimony given today will disclose anything of which American diplomats are unaware, the backers of these Americans hope that what is aired will create enough outrage, and shame, to move the Bush Administration to action. “If the United States is unwilling to confront the Saudis over the unjust treatment of our own citizens,” asks Rep. Burton, “how likely are we to prevail in correcting more far-reaching manifestations of Saudi extremism?”