Freedom of religion is being seriously infringed in Saudi Arabia

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) drew attention on Tuesday on the occasion of the visit to Germany of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to the serious infringements of freedom of religion in the kingdom. Christians, Ahmadiyya and Shiite Muslims are suffering from

severe discrimination and often also from persecution, said the GfbV. Not even the practice of their faith in private is allowed. The GfbV appealed to the Bundeskanzler, Angela Merkel, and Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeyer, to speak out for more freedom of religion in Saudi Arabia and for more commitment of his country in the search for peace in Sudan. King Abdullah is expected in Berlin on Wednesday for a three-day visit.

It is true that the King recently spoke out in public for more freedom of religion, but those who do not abide by the Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam live dangerously, said the GfbV. For all other religions may only be practised in private. There are constant infringements of human rights on the part of the state religious police and other security forces towards members of other faiths. 22 Ahmadiyya believers were arrested on 29th December 2006 while practising their faith in Jeddah. The foreign workers, who had lived for 25 years in the kingdom were only released after 14 days and handed over to their employers when the latter had promised to make sure that they would leave the country on the expiry of their contracts. The Ahmadiyya community, which was founded in Pakistan and which counts millions of adherents, claims to be a reform movement of Islam and honours its founder, Mirza Gulam Ahmad, as a moderniser. The sect is persecuted in a number of Muslim states.

Those affected by the limitation of religious freedom are, apart from the four million Shiite Moslems, above all the eight million foreign workers, who make up about one third of the 27 million inhabitants of the country. There are more than one million Catholic Philippines living in the kingdom. Many are young women working as domestic servants, who are not allowed to practise their faith either. The religious police has conducted several raids on private religious services, confiscated bibles and arrested priests. In October 2006 a Philippine was sentenced to eight months in prison and 60 lashes on the charge of proselytising. He was then deported.

If King Abdullah is serious in his speech on more religious freedom then Saudi Arabia must change its human rights policies in the Arab world, said the GfbV. So the kingdom must not allow itself to be misused by Sudan as an ally for genocide in Darfur. For there Arab Moslems are conducting a war of destruction against African and arabized Moslems with the object of maintaining their power.