Christians Under Attack

As reported by Open Doors, the Saudi authorities have arrested 28-year-old Hamoud Bin Saleh simply because he gave testimony of his conversion from Islam to Christianity, and also of his critical posture of the kingdom's judiciary on his website.

According to the Open Doors report, this arrest comes barely five months after the daughter of a member of Saudi Arabia's religious police was killed for writing online about her faith in Christ.

In its report of Hamoud's arrest, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said that Hamoud had been detained for nine months in 2004 and again for a month last November, and was reportedly being held in Riyadh's Eleisha prison because of his faith in Christ.

The report said that on Hamoud’s website, which Saudi authorities have since blocked, he wrote that his journey to Christ began after witnessing the public beheading of three Pakistanis convicted of drug charges.

Apparently, Hamoud received Christ as his savior after reading how Jesus forgave, rather than stoned, a woman condemned for adultery.

In a related incident, Compass Direct News also reported that Gabriel, a prominent foreign pastor, who is the father of eight children and who has lived and worked as a private driver in Saudi Arabia for 25 years, has fled Riyadh after a member of the religious police threatened his life three times in one week.

Compass Direct said that on January 10, Gabriel found an unsigned note on his vehicle threatening to kill him if he did not leave the country. On Jan. 13, a sheikh at a Riyadh mosque, who is also allegedly a member of the religious police, in the company of four others wearing masks and driving a small car, cut off the van Gabriel was driving. They forced him out of the vehicle, and told him to leave the country.

They told him, "If you do not leave the country, we will kill you."

The report says the masked men raged at him for about five minutes, accusing him of being a Christian, and of trying to change the religion of others.

Subsequent to the threat, Gabriel took temporary refuge in a safe house in Riyadh, and after consulting with consular officials from four embassies, he was whisked away to another city the following day.

In 2005, authorities directed that Gabriel be arrested along with 16 other foreign Christian leaders, although diplomatic pressure resulted in their release within weeks.

The report says the current situation and circumstances surrounding Gabriel are similar to those of Tony Higgins, the Irish Roman Catholic layman, who was gunned down in Riyadh in August 2004.