Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide (7 page)

Saudi officialdom promotes extreme religious intolerance. On March 17, 2008, a bill came before the Saudi Consultative Council calling for “an international pact for respecting religions … and [to] prohibit insulting them in any way” in order to combat a purported “onslaught on Islam” such as “the blasphemous cartoons and films being published in Denmark, the Netherlands, America, and the like.” However, the council soundly rejected the measure, with at least one member
arguing that approving the measure would “make it obligatory to recognize some religions and will facilitate establishing places of worship for them in Muslim countries.”
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The same intolerance pervades the educational system. A study presented at the December 2003 Second Forum for National Dialogue found that boys’ school texts on Islam “legitimiz[e] the violent repression of the ‘other’ and even his physical elimination because of his views on disputed issues. … These things may create a misapprehension that violent treatment of the ‘other’ is a task in which the pupil is obliged to take an interest.” Among the purported signs of unbelief were referring to God by nonstandard names, such as “the Absolute Power,” or saying that “religion is not in the hair,” with reference to a bearded man. Statements that could credit a force other than Allah with producing results, such as “Development programs will eliminate poverty and ignorance,” could indicate polytheism. Other Muslims, such as “Jahamiyya, Mu’tazila, Ashariyya, and Sufis, were deceived, and have deviated from the right path.” Celebrations of the prophet’s birthday are “imitating Christians” and redolent of “polytheism and deeds that are forbidden.”
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On June 11, 2008, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reported that a twelfth-grade
Tafsir
(Qur’anic interpretation) textbook (still online in 2011) teaches that it is permissible “to kill an apostate (a convert from Islam)” (
Tafsir
, Arabic/Sharia, 123). A twelfth-grade
Tawhid
(monotheism) text states, “Major polytheism makes blood and wealth permissible,” meaning that polytheists can be killed or robbed with impunity (
Tawhid
, Arabic/Sharia, 15). In Saudi interpretation, “major polytheists” can include Shias and Sufis, as well as Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists.
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Despite Saudi assurances since the 2003 National Dialogue that it has changed its texts, studies by the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom in 2008 and 2011 found that the Ministry of Education’s religious curriculum still taught hatred of Jews, Christians, Westerners, infidels, polytheists, and apostates, and it approved murder with impunity of members of many of these groups. For example, they assert that “building mosques on graves is an expression of polytheism” and that “major polytheism makes blood and wealth permissible.”
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These texts are posted on the ministry’s website, are required for all Saudi public schools, and are sent free to numerous mosques, Muslim schools, and libraries throughout the world.

The law combines royal decrees and sharia, in which, apart from commercial matters, there is no unified code. Rules are often vague and subject to judicial idiosyncrasies; due process is severely deficient and, at times, wholly lacking, with religious police often summarily punishing their targets. Judicial proceedings, when they occur, are often closed to the public.
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Apostasy is, in principle, subject to sharia
hudud
rules, which means that the punishment—death—is believed to be fixed by divine order and not subject to judicial discretion, though the king has commuted sentences and pardoned those convicted of such offenses. People may
be accused of witchcraft, without any clear definition of the offense, and can be executed on the grounds of
ta’zir
, which focuses on the severity of the act and the turpitude of the offender.
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The threshold for conviction in witchcraft cases is low and might even be a mere accusation. In May 2009, the religious police announced “a new national strategy for combating sorcery in the Kingdom,” but its details are not public.
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Frequently, apostasy charges also lack evidence. In a 1970 memorandum on human rights sent to international organizations, the government asserted that the prohibition on Muslims changing their religion was because of “a Jewish conspiracy which was plotted in the early days of Islam” in which “[t]he Jews… craftily thought to let some of them join Islam then renounce it in order to make the Arabs suspect their religion and be misled.” Hence, a law was created preventing a Muslim from changing his religion “so that nobody could join Islam excepting after making a rational and scientific study of its doctrines ending with his permanent acceptance of the Muslim creed.” Its aim was to prevent “evil men … from joining Islam,” hence “extirpating malicious elements who have been persisting in spreading evil on Earth.”
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The Saudi government forbids the practice of any non-Muslim religion, as well as many forms of Islam, within the kingdom. Bringing in non-Muslim religious literature and symbols is generally banned, as well as Qur’ans and other Islamic items of non-Saudi origin, though the government now says they may be brought in for personal use only and kept out of the public eye. Until 2007, signs posted in Saudi airports warned openly of this practice.
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In recent years, the government has said it will not stop nonapproved religious practices if they are private and discreet, and there appears to have been a reduction in such interference. However, the
mutawa’in
still attack non-Muslims, who are also subject to apostasy and blasphemy accusations and, like “Rania,” described above, private attack.

In 2001, Saudi authorities arrested fourteen expatriate Christians in Jeddah. One of them, an Ethiopian named Worku Aweke, had a passport with the name Ismail Abubakr, a Muslim-sounding name he had officially taken, probably to help find work in the kingdom. Suspected of being an apostate, he was beaten savagely and when, in January 2002, his fellow prisoners were taken to the Breman deportation center as a prelude to deportation, he was transferred to the Matta Jail in Mecca. Since his case attracted international attention, he was not charged with apostasy but was deported in March 2002, along with Filipino Christian Dennis Moreno.
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On November 29, 2004, the religious police took Saudi citizen Emad Alaabadi to prison on charges of having converted to Christianity two years earlier. There are reports that other Saudi Christians were arrested at the same time, but their
names remain unknown.
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Reportedly, Alaabadi has since been released and lives in Saudi Arabia under heavy restrictions.
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In May 2007, U.S. diplomats received information about another Saudi convert who was reportedly tortured and scheduled for trial. His fate, like his name, remains unknown.
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On January 13, 2009, Hamoud Bin Saleh was arrested for comments posted on his blog criticizing the Saudi judiciary and discussing his conversion to Christianity. Authorities blocked the blog, which Google subsequently locked for an alleged terms-of-service violation. The company reportedly reactivated his site on February 5 due to popular outcry. On March 28, 2009, Bin Saleh was released but forbidden to leave Saudi Arabia or appear in the media. However, he defiantly continued to blog. He attributed his freedom to do so to the pressure that the Arab Network for Human Rights Information had put on the Saudi authorities. His blog was shuttered once more, but, so far, Saudi authorities appear to have been relatively lenient, especially given Saleh’s outspoken critiques and his clear “apostate” status.
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Ahmadis also suffer in Saudi Arabia. On December 29, 2006, forty-nine Ahmadi expatriates were arrested in Jeddah, apparently on orders from Interior Minister Prince Nayef. They had just completed noon prayers at a rented guesthouse where they held monthly meetings. Their technical offense, mentioned by the police but never pressed as a formal charge, was meeting to pray without a permit. The next day, they were transferred to Buraiman Prison.
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At least six other Ahmadis were arrested in early January 2007, and all were eventually deported. When some of the Ahmadis’ employers attempted to obtain their release, they were turned away with the words, “There is an order from Nayef, so don’t come to try to release them.” One detainee said that interrogators pressured him to reveal the names of other Ahmadis in the country. Two additional expatriate Ahmadis were arrested in February 2007.
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Probably the brunt of Saudi Arabian religious repression falls on its Shia minority, who are excluded completely from the state’s extensive religious media and broadcasting programming.
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State online textbooks condemn Shias as “polytheists.”
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Common Shia practices, such as celebrating Muhammad’s birthday or visiting the tombs of renowned Muslims, are in principle forbidden, though may be permitted in parts of the Eastern Province, a largely Shia area. In mixed Shia and Sunni areas, authorities limit public observances of Ashura, in which Shias mark the martyrdom of the Prophet’s grandson, Ali. Shia books and tapes may be banned.
While Shia judges may use their own sharia school to rule on inheritance, family law, or endowments, there have been only seven such judges, all based in the Eastern Province, with three serving on an appeals court. In other cases, Shias must appear in Sunni sharia courts. Government departments may also refuse to implement rulings issued by Shia judges. Courts may also ignore Shia testimony or give it less weight than that of Sunnis.
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A 2001 fatwa by Sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Barrak, who then held a royally approved position on a religious council, declared that Shias are
raafidah
, “rejecters of religion,” who cannot be “a group of Muslims.”
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In December 2006, apparently for emphasis, he issued another fatwa proclaiming them heretics and apostates, “bearing all the characteristics of infidels.” On January 21, 2007, Sheikh Abdullah bin Abdulrahman bin Jibrin declared that Shias are heretics and apostates who cooperate with Christians to kill Sunnis—especially in Iraq—and that they should be expelled from Sunni Muslim countries.
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On June 1, 2008, twenty-two Saudi sheikhs, including al-Barrak and bin Jibrin, publicly denounced Hezbollah and also Shias in general as “a sect that the Jews inserted in the body of the Muslim Ummah a long, long time ago.”
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Shia Sheikh Tawfiq Al-Amer was imprisoned for a week because he condemned the statement and said that the authors spoke only for themselves and not for all Sunnis.
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Sadeq Abdul Karim Malallah, an advocate for the rights of Saudi Shias, was first imprisoned at the age of seventeen in 1988 for throwing stones at a police car.
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During his imprisonment, he was reportedly physically abused and was transferred to a
Mabahith
prison after he resisted a judge’s pressure to abandon his Shia faith in return for a lighter sentence. Malallah was then accused of making blasphemous statements while in jail, including the statement that Muhammad, not God, had authored the Qur’an. Although he recanted the alleged offending statements before the court, the judges stated that the statements’ severity made it impossible to waive the penalty for blasphemy despite his repentance. His appeals to a higher court and to King Fahd were both denied, and he was publicly executed by beheading on September 3, 1992.
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In 2002, as many as seventeen Saudi Shias were facing execution or life imprisonment for heresy.
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In February 2007, a Sunni human rights activist was placed under arrest for meeting with leading Shia cleric Sheikh Hasan al-Saffar.
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Between fall 2008 and spring 2009 alone, Saudi security forces reportedly intervened to ban a Shia funeral procession, seized banners intended to mark the start of Ashura, broke up a Shia religious assembly and arrested its organizer, arrested four brothers who had arranged Shia activities, and arrested two Shia religious leaders. One of them—Sheikh Ali Hussein Al-Amar, arrested on May 17, 2009—was charged with financing Shia religious activities.
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In May 2008, Ali Sibat, a Shia Muslim from Lebanon who claimed to offer psychic predictions and advice on his popular show on Lebanese satellite television, was arrested by the
mutawa’in
while on pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. After being held for over a year, he was sentenced to death on November 9, 2009, for
practicing witchcraft. His lawyer states that he was deceived into believing that if he made a confession, he would be released. Instead, he was forced to appear on a Saudi religious TV program and repeat the confession, which was then used to help convict him.
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In February 2009, religious police filmed Shia women on pilgrimage at a cemetery in Medina believed to be the burial place of many of Muhammad’s descendents. The women’s male relatives, outraged by this invasion of privacy, insisted that the police turn over the footage, but they were arrested for their efforts on the women’s behalf. This set off riots by thousands of Shia pilgrims, many of whom were arrested or injured. There are reports that government forces fired live ammunition, and one Shia scholar reportedly was stabbed at the entrance to the Prophet’s Mosque by a man shouting, “Kill the rejectionist.” However, the Interior Ministry denied that anyone had been injured. In early March, King Abdullah declared that those arrested would be released, but, in March, there was a second wave of arrests. Since this incident, Saudi authorities have increased efforts that interfere with Shias praying collectively.
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