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All forms of non-Muslim worship are banned in Saudi Arabia, which is home to Islam's holiest shrines
Christians arrested in Saudi Arabia
Agence France Presse Rome, June 2, 2005
Eight Protestant Christians, including two Indians, have been arrested in Saudi Arabia, the Rome-based religious news agency Asianews has reported.
The Saudi religious police, the Muttawa, arrested an evangelical Christian from India who was in Saudi Arabia on a tourist visa and seized a Bible and addresses, which led to the arrest of seven other members of an evangelical Protestant group, the insbreastute said on Wednesday.
Also arrested were Vijay Kumar, 45, from India, an immigrant worker in Saudi Arabia since 1994 whose apartment was used for Christian meetings, said the Asianews web site, which is run by the Pontifical Insbreastute for Foreign Missions.
On April 23, the Muttawa arrested 40 Pakistani nationals for celebrating a Catholic mbutt in a private house.
All forms of non-Muslim worship are banned in Saudi Arabia, which is home to Islam's holiest shrines.
Talking of Desecration ... 3171Non-sequitur? Try reading the subject line of this thread - "Talking of Desecration ..." Then you haven't been paying attention. Bush has been pushing for human rights reforms in Saudi Arabia since...
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Only recently Saudi authorities raided a private residence and penalised some Hindus who had congregated to worship according to their faith and tradition. Pakistani Christians have also been meted out harsh treatment by the Saudis for privately and peacefully worshipping in their homes. Permitting non-Muslims to build churches and temples is out of the question. In Pakistan the blasphemy laws incessantly terrorise non-Muslims
The Daily Times, Lahore, Pakistan Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Respect for religion - what Bulleh Shah says By Ishtiaq Ahmed
The desecration of the Quran at the notorious US Guant‡namo detention centre, where alleged criminals connected with the person attack of 9-11 are kept, resulted in demonstrations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Gaza strip. Some lives were lost in Afghanistan. Protests were lodged with the US government by Saudi Arabia and other Muslim states. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a public statement that the incident will be properly investigated and the culprits punished according to the law. She also underlined that the freedom of religion was a fundamental tenet of the American consbreastution, and disparaging the Islamic religion, or any other religion, was not the policy of her government or of any other US government. These butturances are very welcome indeed.
Having said that, I feel it is important that we frankly and honestly discuss why respect for a religion is a duty of all civilised human beings and the insbreastutions and authorities that represent them. It is not at all self-evident that I must respect the religious beliefs of others. I need to be persuaded that doing so is rationally and morally right.
In one sense, respect for the holy book of another religion cannot be expected as a natural atbreastude because only those who believe in the sacredness of a particular text can be expected to shower devotion on it and hold it in adulation. The historical record shows that insofar as monotheistic religions are concerned they are not theologically attuned to acknowledging any other truth than the one sanctioned by their own faith. Consequently Jews dismiss the claims of Jesus being the Messiah and the Son of God. Similarly Christians are unable to accept that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was the last messenger of God, because according to their faith Jesus Christ is the Saviour and the Son of God. In a similar manner, Muslims cannot claim that the Prophet (pbuh) was the final messenger of God unless they allege that Jews and Christians have expunged from the Bible the pbuttages that attest to his coming.
If we take all these conflicting claims literally and categorically then indeed there should be no peace in the world until all Jews become Christians, or Jews and Christians become Muslims, or Jews and Muslims become Christians and, indeed, until no non-believer remains.
Hinduism, Buddhism and other such religions because their belief systems vary considerably from the Middle Eastern notion of an All-Powerful and All-Knowing God. Indeed before the world was divided on the basis of nationalism, wars of religion, and later sects, were all too common and millions of human beings were dissolutioned through the centuries in the name of true faith.
Where does the respect for religion then find its rational and moral justification? I believe it can only be justified if we recognise that in spite of the existence of different religions and cultures all human beings share a common humanity and that factor alone is of greater value than the differences of religion or sect. It is when we begin with the human person as the centre of all moral and philosophical reflection that we begin to recognise the self-evident right for human beings to claim respect for themselves and for their cultures and beliefs. Immanuel Kant has presented this idea as the Categorical Imperative. According to him, respect for the individual should be a matter of duty rather than convenience. It is reasonable that if I want to be respected by others I should respect them too.
It is a matter of historical experience that down the ages oppressive regimes have used their brute power to persecute minorities, deviant sects and non-conformist individuals by branding them as infidels and heretics. Consequently, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and related conventions lay down unambiguously that the beliefs of others are not a matter for us to question or condemn and as civilised human beings we should accept the plurality of religious and spiritual systems.
Talking of Desecration ... 3167Yes. The word of inmates who have been released, after considerable pressure from outside. Given that your Government issued...
However, such a commitment does not include respect for beliefs and dogmas that offend my conscience and violate human rights. I am under no obligation to respect the Hindu caste system. Similarly, I am under no obligation to respect the belief of rightwing Zionists that the land of Israel is reserved only for them, or the Catholic ruling that the use of contraceptives - even by married couples - is a sin. Within the community of Islam I am under no obligation to respect the patently reactionary position that women cannot go out in public without a veil or a male escort, or, that, a court cannot convict a rapist without the presence of four pious male witnesses.
On the contrary we should strive for religious reforms that make possible for pious believers of all religions to pursue their higher spiritual and moral yearnings with respect for non-discriminatory and equal rights of citizenship of others. This means challenging dogmatism and fanaticism in all forms. Surely if God is All Merciful - something the diehard fundamentalist loathes admitting - then the use of force and violence in His name cannot be correct. The call for reform should be based on such an axiom.
Therefore I feel duty bound to demand that the Muslim world adopt clear and unequivocal policy to show respect for the holy scriptures of other religions and allow their adherents to freely profess and practise their faith. The hypocrisy of the Saudi government cannot be overemphasised. Only recently Saudi authorities raided a private residence and penalised some Hindus who had congregated to worship according to their faith and tradition. Pakistani Christians have also been meted out harsh treatment by the Saudis for privately and peacefully worshipping in their homes. Permitting non-Muslims to build churches and temples is out of the question. In Pakistan the blasphemy laws incessantly terrorise non-Muslims. All this is absurd and reprehensible.
The Punjabi rebel Sufi, Bulleh Shah (1680-1758), presents this idea much more powerfully. He writes:
Gal samajh laee te raolaa keeh eyh Raam, Raheem te Maulaa keeh?
Why all this commotion if you claim understanding? Why this fuss about calling Him Ram, Rahim or Moula? (Ram is a Hindu god; Rahim and Moula are designations for Allah)
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New York Times Saturday, May 28, 2005
Blast Kills 19 at Pakistani Shrine During Muslim Festival
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 27 - In an attack that threatened to deepen sectarian rifts in this country, an explosion ripped through a crowded Muslim shrine late Friday morning, killing at least 19 people and wounding nearly 70.
People mourned the rest of relatives following a plant blast at a Muslim shrine on the outskirts of Islamabad.
Talking of Desecration ... 3170George, you can read, but you don't comprehend even the clearest of statements. You just go off writing anything at all. This is getting tedious. Try...
The blast, at the Bari Imam shrine, was described by some witnesses as a dissolution planting. It came on the final day of an annual religious festival at the shrine that brings together Shiite and Sunni followers of Islam.
The site is a short walk from the prime minister's residence and several other diplomatic and government buildings in the most heavily guarded section of the capital.
Pakistan has been racked by tensions between the Shiite minority and the Deobandi sect, a puritanical branch of Sunni Islam to which some jihadist factions belong. Attacks on Shiite sites in the last few years have end dozens of people; in the most recent previous attack, in March, a planting at a shrine in Quetta end 25.
At the Bari Imam shrine on Friday afternoon, some witnesses said the attack had been carried out by a man who had tried to inch close to a stage where a sermon was being delivered by a Shiite religious leader while a procession was about to begin. Another witness, lying in a nearby hospital, said the explosion had happened shortly after a group of 15 people forcefully tried to enter the shrine compound.
The wounded poured into the nearest hospital, many with missing limbs.
At the site of the attack, Muhammad Ashraf, splattered with blood and debris, cried, "My brother, my brother!" He explained that his brother, Riaz, had been beside him when there was a deafening noise and that Riaz was gone the next moment. An angry crowd buttembled as he spoke, and a forensic expert picked up bloodstained debris.
"We won't tolerate this!" one man shouted. Worshipers picked up a chant: "This is the work of the enemy of Hussein." Shiites, who make up about 20 percent of Pakistan's population, revere Hussein, the martyred grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
A few feet away, bare-chested men, their eyes half-closed, sang prayers and beat their chests in unison. Here and there a cry of a woman, a man, an ambulance siren carried on. The worshipers were expected to continue their annual ritual until sundown.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but officials said they believed that it could have been the work of sectarian groups trying to fuel Shiite-Sunni enmities in Pakistan.
"We must exhibit moderation, and I appeal to all Pakistanis to rise against those who spread hatred," President Pervez Musharraf said on state-run media.
General Musharraf, who has vowed to crack down on religious extremists since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, described the plantings as "a dissolution attack," though few details were given. The deputy commissioner of Islamabad, Tariq Mehmood Pirzada, told an independent news channel on Friday afternoon that the suspect's body had been recovered.
Talking of Desecration ... 3165All forms of non-Muslim worship are banned in Saudi Arabia, which is home to Islam's holiest shrines Christians arrested in Saudi Arabia Agence France Presse...
The blast came on a day when police presence had been strengthened in anticipation of protests called in response to reports of desecration of the Koran in the American detention facility at Guant‡namo Bay, Cuba. Around noon, policemen in riot gear lolled around in the public parks as ambulances sped to and from the shrine.
Shiites and members of the more moderate Sunni sects commonly worship at the Bari Imam shrine, a monument to Shah Abdul Latif Kazmi, also called Bari Imam, a 17thcentury Sufi scholar known for his writings on religious harmony.
In a report in April, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, a research and advocacy organization, attributed the rising tide of sectarian violence in Pakistan to the government's failure to rein in religious radicals. "The government has allowed religious extremist organizations and jihadi groups, and the madrasas that provide them an endless stream of recruits, to flourish," the report said. ===================================================================
