DONATE NOW Home » Persecution in Saudi Arabia - Christian Freedom International “I Will Die For Him Here” “If I have to die for my God, I will die for him here.” It was the oath that Vasantha Sekhar Vara, a 28-year-old Christian from India, swore to his pastor when he spoke with him by telephone one week after his imprisonment in Saudi Arabia. Vasantha had been arrested along with Yohan Nese, a fellow Christian from India, while attending a prayer meeting at their Pentecostal house church in Riyadh. The Rejoice in the Church of the Lord’s service came to an abrupt halt when religious police raided the apartment where the meeting was being held, as they confiscated Bibles, broke furniture, and even painted Koran verses on the apartment’s walls. After the raid, Vasantha and Yohan were taken into custody, where they were interrogated and beaten viciously. The next day, the men were taken to the Religious Court, where they were charged with proselytizing and given a 45-day prison sentence. When he was finally granted permission to make a phone call, Vasantha called his pastor in India and explained that he had been pressured to convert back to Islam, but had refused. The men were moved to a central, overcrowded prison in Riyadh, where the living conditions were substandard at best and inhumane at worst. Because there was no place for them to even sit down, Vasantha and Nese were forced to sleep in shifts, usually just two hours at a time. Food was scarce, and despite Yohan’s suspected bout with tuberculosis, he was denied medical treatment. As they remained cut off from the outside world, the men’s captivity slowly stretched into weeks, then months, with seemingly no end in sight. But as they languished in prison, another Christian would be detained just weeks later. Mussie Eyob, a preacher from Eritrea, was arrested while evangelizing on the streets of Saudi Arabia, first at the Eritrean embassy and then at a local mosque. At first, authorities suspected that Mussie was mentally ill, but after examination, he was declared fit to stand trial. He, too, was charged with proselytizing; only his crime carried the weight of the death penalty. For the next several months, Mussie awaited his fate on death row in the infamous Briman High Security Prison. He, too, was ready to die for his God… The State Of Persecution In Saudi Arabia In July 2011, the Saudi Arabian government released Vasantha Vara, Yohan Nese, and Mussie Eyob from their prison sentences. Vasantha and Yohan were deported back to India, and Mussie was returned to Eritrea, where, unfortunately, he also faced the possibility of imprisonment. They are just a few Christians, native or foreign, who have suffered grave persecution under the weight of strict Islamic law in the Saudi Arabian kingdom. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam and the site of two of the religion’s holiest cities, Mecca and Medina. Saudi Arabia is officially an Islamic state, and its population is known as 100 percent Muslim. Because it has such strong roots in this country, Islam is fiercely guarded through the suppression of all other religions, including Christianity. Like proselytizing, converting from Islam to Christianity is a crime punishable by death. If a converted Christian is discovered, it is the duty of the Muslim friends and family members to perform an “honor killing,” or to murder the convert. Those who manage to escape such a fate from the hands of their loved ones will likely fall victim to the mutawwa’in, or religious police, where they often face imprisonment, torture, or even beheading. Because of this terrible reality, many Saudi Christians live in constant fear for their lives. Life is very difficult for Christian expatriates living in Saudi Arabia, who must deal with a complete lack of personal and religious freedom. Most of these foreigners have little or no access to the Gospel, and they are forced to meet secretly in homes, at the risk of beatings, imprisonment, deportation, or even execution if their activities are discovered.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 05:02:29 +0000
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