Abu Kassim ([#1]Muslims should be proud of Islam[/#], April 10) asserts that more murders occur in 10 minutes in New York and Chicago than in 10 years in Saudi Arabia. As an American who worked in Saudi Arabia for four years, I would like to remind your readers of a few obvious facts that are so often (deliberately or not) overlooked.

First, we have a free press that reports most crimes in the United States. Reporters visit the police log every day, with the absolute right to print every crime they find.

In Saudi Arabia, by contrast, the press is certainly not free, and you can be sure that violent crimes go mostly unreported in the press. As in Malaysia, the function of the local press is to propagate the notion that the nation is paradise on earth and that the leader is infallible.

Saudi is certainly not a safe country. Bodies are regularly found in dumpsters there, and foreigners are especially vulnerable to rape, kidnapping and murder by Saudi criminals, who operate with impunity because foreigners have absolutely no rights in that country.

Furthermore, I would like to point out something that is studiously and conveniently ignored by America's detractors: the crime rate in the last 10 years has been reduced to pre-1970 levels, and murders in New York City average about one a day.

The British Home Office statistics, moreover, show that violent crime rates other than murder are lower in the US than in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, England and Wales.

I have lived around the world outside the US for a total of almost 30 years, and Saudi Arabia is the worst place I've ever lived.