From the Assist News Service, with thanks to Nicolei:
RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA — News has just become available in the West that an Indian Christian has been abducted on a street in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and is being held incommunicado in the desert Kingdom.
This information comes from the Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC).
The man, they say, is Samkutty (Sam) Varghese, an Indian national who had traveled to Saudi Arabia on Jan 26th 2005.
“He was staying in Riyadh until his abduction off the streets by the Muttawa (Saudi religious police),” said a spokesperson for ICC. “It is being reported to us that the Muttawa approached Sam as he was waiting for friends near the city center of Riyadh on the evening of March 9th at approximately 7:00 pm. Mr. Varghese was awaiting a visa extension from the Saudi government.
“The Muttawa asked Varghese for his passport. However, he was only able to give them a copy because the Saudi government had taken his passport since he was requesting a visa extension. They then asked him what was in his bag. In his bag, he had one Bible in the Hindi language. The Muttawa then took Mr. Varghese away and there has been no communication from him since.”…