Friday, April 29, 2005
EDITORIAL #2: Will ‘Saudia’ face up to modern times?
On Friday, Saudi Arabia detained 40 Pakistani Christians for holding private prayers in the capital city of Riyadh. It was announced in the newspapers that “practising any religion other than Islam was illegal” in the Kingdom. A group of men, women and children were attending the service inside a house when the police raided it. It needs no explanation that the Pakistani Christians who were thus apprehended belonged to the lower stratum of the expatriate community in the Saudi capital. One does not expect the Saudi police to raid an American house and catch its inmates drinking beer or reading the Bible.
Saudi Arabia has sealed the sacred cities of Hejaz against non-Muslims. It has set up the capital at Riyadh so that non-Muslim diplomats and other foreigners can live away from the pristine environment of Mecca and Madena. What does it expect the non-Muslims in Riyadh to do? Give up their religion? The Pakistanis “guilty” of reading the Bible were found practising their faith inside a private house. It was nothing like the mosques in Europe loudly calling the faithful to namaz. Does Saudi Arabia want “Christian” Europe to retaliate? It is time the Kingdom climbed into modern times — for the sake of the Muslims of the world.
Daily Times