Saudi Tolerance

Just before Crown Prince Abdullah paid his hand-holding visit upon President Bush, the Saudis arrested 40 people for the heinous crime of practicing Christianity:

Just days before Crown Prince Abdullah showed up at President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, to declare that "tolerance must extend to those of all faiths and practices," Saudi police stormed a clandestine church in a suburb of Riyadh and arrested 40 Christians for proselytizing.

Saudi state-controlled newspapers reported on April 23 that two days earlier, security forces rounded up 40 men, women, and children of Pakistani citizenship who were worshipping at an abandoned villa in western Riyadh, according to translations provided by American-based Saudi monitors.

Al-Riyadh newspaper quoted a security official as saying that the Christians were arrested for "trying to spread their poisonous religious beliefs to others through the distribution of books and pamphlets," the Saudi Institute in Washington, D.C., said in a report.

That the arrests occurred just hours before Mr. Abdullah flew to Texas for a friendly meeting with Mr. Bush underscored the gap between Saudi pledges to the White House and its actions at home.
[...]
Human-rights monitors and lawmakers have criticized the Bush administration for not penalizing the Saudi government after the State Department in September designated the kingdom a "Country of Particular Concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act. The 1998 statute gave the State Department the authority to officially single out "nations guilty of particularly severe violations of religious freedom."

Though a deadline for imposing penalties passed more than a month ago, State Department officials have said they need more time from Congress to decide on an appropriate action to take.

MEMRI reported on the arrests last week.

Posted by damian at May 2, 2005 07:27 AM | TrackBack