Saudi Shiites arrested over worship

Several Shiite community leaders arrested in Eastern Province for hosting worship services in their homes.

RIYADH - Authorities in Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia have arrested several Shiite community leaders in the Eastern Province for hosting Shiite worship services in their homes, an activist said Tuesday.

A 30-year old school teacher was detained on Monday in Al-Khobar, where three other Shiites were arrested a week earlier for private services on the Shiite Ashura holiday last December, said Ibrahim Mugaiteeb of the Human Rights First Society.

The arrests follow more than a year of tensions in the Eastern Province over permits for new Shiite mosques in the region.

Authorities have shut down several makeshift Shiite mosques and refused a mosque permit for the 20,000-strong Al-Khobar Shiite community, according to Mugaiteeb.

"They cannot have their own mosques, and they can't pray in a Sunni mosque," he said. "They are not allowed to have prayers in the streets."

He said that three of those arrested were from the same al-Maki family: Hassan Ali al-Maki, the teacher arrested Monday, Abdullah Fahad al-Maki, 73, and Hassan Ali al-Maki, 45.

The fourth man was Mahdi Ahmad al-Khodhair, 64, and all were arrested March 29, Mugaiteeb said.

Mainly concentrated in the Eastern Province, Shiites constitute around 10 percent of the population of Saudi Arabia, where Sunni Islam is the official practice and most Sunni clerics regard Shiism as a rejection of "true" Islam.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=38273.