Saudi Christian convert arrested and jailed

[TO Kid]

Jeddah (AsiaNews) – A Saudi citizen converted to Christianity has been arrested and jailed. Emad Alaabadi was taken into custody last November 29, at Hofuf, a town in eastern Saudi Arabia, but the news was reported only a few days ago by the International Christian Concern (ICC), a Washington-based human rights group. AsiaNews local sources have confirmed the report, and also say that he “is not the only Saudi Christian in jail at the moment: there are also others”.

According to news obtained by ICC, other Christians – at least 3 or 4 – appear to have been arrested along with Emad. The presence of Christians in Saudi prisons had also been confirmed by Brian O’Connor, in an interview with AsiaNews. Brian Savio O’Connor is a Protestant Indian who was deported from Saudi Arabia after being tortured and held in prison for “having preached Christianity”. Upon his return to India, O’Connor told AsiaNews that “there are still many other Christians that need your help in Saudi prisons”.

Last November 29, Amad was intercepted by the Muttawa, Saudi religion police, while he was driving his children home from school. The police escorted them home and then took Amad to the local prison. Later he was transferred to Jeddah, were he is currently imprisoned. On December 4, he managed to contact his mother, who lives in Australia, by telephone, to let her know what had happened and where he was. The mother reported that he sounded very weak: ICC said that the Muttawa agents probably tortured the Christian-faith Amad to reconvert him to Islam.

http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=2134

I guess that this was "moderate" Islam at work- according to Islamic scripture, converting to another faith is punishable by death. So much for Bush's "peaceful" allies.

[kodi]

1. thank god the saudis are our allies, ops, sorry, thank allah.

.

[Bono71]

13. Lol...touche.

[Igel]

2. No, no.

Not "reconvert". "Revert." Xtians don't CONvert to Islam; they REvert.

[GOPBasher]

3. This is what theocracy looks like. The Christian right is bringing that

to this country. What they want here is the Christian version of Saudi Arabia.

[htuttle]

4. Wonder if the Saudis will cut his head off?

[David__77]

5. There are no religions but Islam allowed in Saudi Arabia.

Iraq under the Baath was a stronghold of democracy compared with the Saudi theocrats.

[Ms. Clio]

6. Ah, yes, let's examine this so-called "Asia News," shall we?

It is a Christian missionary web site with a masthead that reads: "Asia, our common task for the Third Millenium!"

Being able to offer AsiaNews articles in this language allows us to communicate with major English and American news publications, in addition to churches in America and Africa. Above all, it permits us to communicate with the churches in Asia which use English as an international communications tool. In this sense, AsiaNews articles on Asian ecclesial communities allows these very churches to share and know the fate and mission of their sister communities on the continent. Thus, information becomes a means of communion for them.

Yet we are even more enthusiastic about releasing our on-line edition in Chinese. We believe that this commitment is the most free-giving and missionary aspect of our news agency. It is free-giving, not only because it is economically onerous, but because it is nobly dedicated to China and her people.

Nowadays, curiosity about Christianity, the Church and pope John Paul II is widespread among the Chinese populace –above all in university environments. A sociological study conducted by China’s Open University (Renmin Daxue) demonstrates that 61.5% of Peking’s students are interested in Christianity and want to be believers. The majority of them search for information on the Christian faith by way of literature. Since university students have internet access, we think that AsiaNews will help them to be familiar with the impact Christianity has on Asian and Chinese society. Already many Chinese intellectuals think China can be saved by Christianity, so as not to explode into a soulless market or a dictatorship that humiliates the individual.

Hence our dedication is a missionary gesture. Among the articles we present in today’s edition concerning the Peoples Republic of China are interviews with a priest who was the first ever Chinese religious to receive a doctorate since the 1950s. In addition, there is an interview with recent converts. They have all become priests and deacons and emphasize the urgent need for stable formation, an education dedicated to studying the faith on a deeper level in terms of culture adapted to Chinese customs and modern life presently invading their country.

http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=127


This is not a valid source for late breaking news.

[LoZoccolo]

7. Why didn't you just tell the mods, then?

Personally, I think if the story's true, the story's true no matter who's reporting it.

Plus I think it's good because George W. Bush* has all these people holding up his faith at the same time he's got all these entanglements with this country that criminalizes the same faith he holds. I think that's an important enough point.

[Ms. Clio]

8. I think it's important for people to look deeper at sources like this

It's impossible to know the "truth" of this story--it is entirely sourced to a web site that has an agenda of promoting Christians as persecuted and proselytizing in China.

Moreover, men have been picked up, interrogated, and tortured in this country just for being Muslim--that concerns me a lot more than what is happening in Saudi Arabia, a country that I do not expect to uphold religious freedom or civil rights.

[msmcghee]

9. If you truly believe that a mythical God is in control . .

. . . of you (and the universe) . . . then that will be the central and most important element of your worldview. Everything else you believe about existence and your place in it will be derived from that.

Therefore, everyone who does not believe as you do - is saying that your worldview, that is, that which justifies and validates your very existence, is bogus and foolish.

Between religious wars believers grudgingly bottle up their mistrust and scorn for non-believers. They mouth platitudes about the "minor differences" between their respective deities and how we are all God's children and how we just call Him by different names.

But, at it's core, non-belief is such a profound insult that for thousands of years we humans have been butchering and murdering untold millions of our brothers and sisters for that reason alone. It's just a matter of time before the religionists again embrace their core belief that their God requires the death of all non-belivers (for the good of mankind, of course).

Think about it. Today, Christianity is on a worldwide binge of prosylitizing and missionary zeal. Devout evangelical Christians occupy the leadership of the most powerful nation on earth. American Generals in Iraq openly and publicly declare that their God is real and scorn Allah as a fake. They look the other way while American GI's humiliate and torture Arab prisoners who are often innocent of any crime. We're now bombing whole cities in Iraq to take out a few insurgents.

The president of the United States believes in Armageddon and talks of his Crusade and how he believes that God has placed him in the Whitehouse to do a specific job.

Moslems throughout the world know what that job is. Militant Moslems are coming to Iraq by the thousands because they know that Iraq could be their last best chance to defend their God Alla-u Akbar - from Bush's Christ praise the Lord.

Do not make the mistake of believing that the stupidity of another worldwide religious war is impossible in this day and age. The next religious conflagration is coming soon to a neighborhood near you. Those who believe in the mythical sky beings are about to do it again.

[VegasWolf]

10. I'm with you most of the way but I don't think that the major cause

of religious war is zealotry, i think it's economics.

[saigon68]

11. I differ with you on this war

I hear more comments about the "Rag-Heads" than the economics of the thing.

It is for Halliburton about profit however.

They would jump in a lake and screw fish for $$$$$$$$$

[VegasWolf]

15. But its the bright people driving the war that know it's all economics,

the sheep just follow along muttering phrases like
raghead or gook.

[Bono71]

14. Holy crap, we agree on something.

[VegasWolf]

16. Damn, I must have made a mistake in my logic. n/t

[Bono71]

17. No, you didn't. It's over money.

[The Stranger]

12. One of the underlying bases of Fundamentalism is a perceived persecution,

so this press report and web site imply that Christians everywhere are being persecuted. In fact, as the post above so eloquently sets forth, Christians (or those who call themselves "Christians") are in control of a nation that is everywhere doing the persecuting.

[Moderator]

18. locking

AsiaNews is not a valid source for Late Breaking News