Middle East Online (thanks to LGF) reports that the British reporter who was shot yesterday in Riyadh pleaded in vain for help by calling out, “I’m a Muslim, help me.”
I don’t know why nobody helped him; maybe passersby didn’t believe him. Maybe he isn’t even really a Muslim: the article isn’t entirely clear on that point. But it’s interesting to note the way he made his appeal. He evidently knew that, in accordance with the great divide of the Qur’an and Sunnah between believers and unbelievers, Saudis would be less inclined to help a wounded non-Muslim.
RIYADH – Riddled with bullets, BBC correspondent Frank Gardner pleaded for his life in the Saudi capital shouting to bystanders to help a fellow Muslim, a police officer said on Monday.
“I’m a Muslim, help me, I’m a Muslim, help me,” the British father of two daughters cried in Arabic, the officer said.
Gardner was stretched on the road, covered in blood from multiple bullet wounds in a slum area of southern Riyadh known as a hotbed of hardliners.
A fluent Arabic speaker with a degree in Arab and Islamic Studies, he was carrying a small copy of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, a device used by Westerner reporters to try to reassure Islamist militants.