Islamic Tolerance Alert from the Kingdom of the Two Holy Places: “Saudi Arabia deports 15 Christians,” from Mission Network News, August 7 (thanks to Freedom4Expression):
Saudi Arabia (MNN) ― The Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that Saudi Arabia deported 15 Christians on Tuesday, August 5th, for holding private worship meetings in a house in the city of Taif.
On Friday, April 25, twelve Saudi Arabian police raided a house where 16 Christians were holding a prayer meeting. The first officer to enter the house after breaking down the main gate pointed a pistol at the Christians and ordered them to hand over their resident permits and mobile phones. The other 11 police followed quickly and started searching the entire house. They confiscated an electronic drum set, an offering box with 500 Saudi Riyal in it ($130), 20 bibles, and a few Christian books.
The police initially accused the Christians of preaching the Bible and singing. They later changed the charge to holding a “dance party” and collecting money to support terrorism.
During the raid, the police mocked, questioned and harassed the Christians for four hours. Then they took them to a police station where the head of the station interrogated them. The official then wrote down their “statements” in Arabic and forced the Christians, who are immigrants and not able to read or write Arabic, to sign the statements.
After the interrogations, the Christians were incarcerated and held incommunicado. After three days, the Christians were finally released on April 27, 2008 at 8 PM.
Upon their release, one of the Christians permanently departed the country. The others, thinking that their ordeal was over, went back to their daily lives and work. But they soon received letters demanding that they leave the country immediately.
ICC’s President Jeff King says this has been typical behavior of Saudi officials. “They’ll say, ‘We don’t want political pressure.’ So [once foreign Christians are] arrested, they release them quickly. The next thing you know, the whole group is deported out of the country.”…