Saudi Arabia Cited as TOP Violator of Religious Freedom

LadyEagle · May 14, 2003

Saudi Arabia was cited as the top violator yesterday in an annual report issued by the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom on the status of religious liberties worldwide.

"These are not idiosyncratic American perceptions of religious freedom," committee Vice Chairman Michael Young said. The report was issued as Saudi Arabia was reeling over at least 20 deaths caused by suicide bombings in an exclusive Riyadh suburb inhabited by foreigners.

The commission was formed by Congress in 1998 and remains the world's only government-sanctioned entity to investigate and report religious-freedom violations. Because Saudi Arabia has the most onerous violations among the 15 countries cited, the report said, the U.S. government needs to get serious about pressuring the desert kingdom to reform.

"It's time to apply the same standards to Saudi Arabia that are applied elsewhere," commission Chairman Felice Gaer said.

Religious freedom is one of the bedrocks of American culture, and a recent poll of 350 evangelical Christian leaders found that 73 percent believed that stopping religious persecution should be a "top priority" in American foreign policy. But freedom of religion does not exist in Saudi Arabia, the commission's report said, except for those practicing an extreme form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism.

Commissioners called on Saudi Arabia to let non-Muslims at least practice their religion in private and criticized the kingdom for "harassment, detention, arrest, torture" and deportation of foreign Christians employed in the country.

[snip]

The commission also expressed frustration with the State Department for not heeding a long-standing recommendation: installing a human rights official among U.S. diplomats in Afghanistan.

"The groundwork is being laid in Afghanistan for a government almost as repressive as the Taliban," commission member Leila Sadat said.

Torture, mass deaths and "a continuing culture of impunity" toward human rights reigns in Afghanistan, but so far, she said, she has met with only a "brick wall" from U.S. government agencies.

[snip]

Vietnam was castigated by the commissioners, who called the communist regime a "dictatorship of fear" where government forces have been known to beat Christian pastors to death for not recanting. Conditions there have worsened, they said, since Congress passed a bilateral-trade agreement between the United States and Vietnam in 2001.
[snip]

China, they said, presents an "appalling situation" for religious rights as "people are continually confined, tortured and imprisoned because of religion," according to Commissioner Richard Land.

North Korea, where religious freedom is "nonexistent," is even worse, he said.

"North Korea is what a country would look like if run by John Gotti."
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http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030514-97788043.htm

We don't need Saudi oil, yet we keep buying it. Why don't we use our own or buy from Argentina or somewhere else ??

Congress formed this Commission yet then rewards religious persecution in these countries by enacting Free World Trade Agreements with them, i.e. Vietnam and China (Normal US Trade Relations) granted during this Administration.

Next time we buy shoes or anything else made in China, we might like to say a prayer for our Christian brothers & sisters who are being tortured & murdered over there as we plunk down our cash.

Or we might try boycotting Chinese goods to send our lawmakers & big business a message where it hurts.

Or we can pretend we don't know any better & keep buying the cheap junk at Wal-Mart & everywhere else, I guess.

Someone help me with this -

Are Christians in the free world responsible to God & will we answer to God some day for whether or not we knowingly bought goods from countries that tortured our Brothers & Sisters in Christ?

Jim1999 · May 14, 2003

I am not sure where this fits in a theological debate forum?????????//

LadyEagle · May 15, 2003

Well, for starters, could this verse be applied to the question?

Luke.12[48]b...For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

Wondering...

Johnv · May 22, 2003

Thocracies are a bad idea.

The official religion of Saudi Arabia is Islam. About 96% of the population is either Sunni or Shiite Muslim. The government supports mosques publicly. While the government does not fund the building of churches, it recogizes the right of non-Muslims to practice their religion privately. While there are no churches, Christians most often meet in rented halls or meeting houses for worship.

In addition to the 15 million Muslims, 7 million foreigners also reside in the country, including approximately 1.5 million Indians, 900,000 Bangladeshis, 800,000 Egyptians, nearly 800,000 Pakistanis, 600,000 Filipinos, 130,000 Sri Lankans, and 36,000 Americans. Comprehensive statistics for the denominations of foreigners are not available, but they include Muslims from the various branches of Islam, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and Jews. For example, the Embassy of the Philippines reports that over 90 percent of the Filipino community (or over half a million persons) is Christian. The Embassy of India reports that the Indian community includes Muslims and Hindus, as well as Christians and Buddhists. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops estimates there are well more than 500,000 Catholics in the country, and perhaps as many as 1 million. There is no information regarding the number of atheists in the country.

Christianity Today Magazine has in the past been quoted as recognizing that, in spite of Saudi Arabia's record on human rights, the Saudi government prefers to remain "in the middle" when it comes to non-Muslim worship, preferring not to get involved unless absolutely necessary. Still, the Saudi government remains tight on keeping non-Muslim worship completely private.

I don't think the problem lies with Saudi Arabia being Muslim as much as it does with living in a theocratic government. From our own Christian history, we've learned that Christian theocracy typically led to the opression of non-Christian peoples. For the most part, Christian theocracies have dwindled, but pretty recently in history. The Muslim world must learn that as well, if it is to survive peaceably. (I don't want to live in a country that has an official religion, even if it's Christianity. That would go against the very fibre of the constitution.)

The United States has maintained close official ties with the kingdom for more than 60 years, although not without strain since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

There is a debate, for example, about whether Saudi Arabia contributes to terrorism by giving money to extremist Islamic groups in South Asia and elsewhere, or whether they have joined hands with the United States in the fight against terrorism.

The United States calls the kingdom a partner in the fight against terror but says the Saudis could do much more. To their credit, the Saudis have recently arrested hundreds terrorist suspects, including those involved with al-Qaida, the network headed by Saudi-born expatriate Osama bin Laden. They say intelligence sharing has resulted in the freezing of more than $70 million linked to terrorist organization financial accounts.

Washington seems determined to preserve good relations with the country. The Saudis won points with the United States a year ago by issuing a formal proposal for a comprehensive settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Of course, that's a topic for another thread.

Saudi Arabia Cited as TOP Violator of Religious Freedom

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Saudi Arabia Cited as TOP Violator of Religious Freedom

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