A-J Pundit got the news from another blogger, Solomonia, who got it from Compass Direct, a web site that reports on persecution of Christians.
Compass Direct reported on 15 June that on the evening of 9 June, four east Africans were arrested for conducting a private service in a private home in Jeddah. The four, two Ethiopians and two Eritrians, are being held in a deportation jail in the city.
According to the CD article:
Typically the Saudi government deports expatriate Christians caught conducting worship meetings in their homes or privately owned villas, forcing their employers to terminate their work contracts.
Under the kingdom’s strict interpretation of Islamic law, public non-Muslim worship is prohibited, although members of the royal family insist that Christians are free to worship within their own homes.
Nice reforms they've got going there in Saudi Arabia.
So maybe this isn't huge international news. But one would think this would at least merit a mention on the major news services. In fact, a search of Yahoo News turns up nothing on this incident, and a wider Google search turns up nothing except word of a larger arrest of 40 Christians which occurred in April. This incident was not reported by the major news organizations either, but rather by a few Christian publications.
Apparently, if it's not Muslims doing the suffering, it's not news-worthy.
1 comment:
Saudi law allows non-Muslim (those who are not Saudi) people to worship in private if they're going to do it alone.
Knowing that, they should abide by the law and not break it. Nobody is forcing them to live in Saudi.
Saudi Arabia has a huge illegal immigration problem, and 5.5 million residents are legal ones. Many of them are not Muslim...they have to respect our laws if they choose to live in the country.
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