SAUDI POLICE DESTROY HINDU TEMPLE

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Press ReleaseDATE: March 29, 2005The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) expressed

shock and outrage over the destruction of a Hindu temple in Saudi Arabia on

March 24, 2005, and rapid deportation of Hindus found worshipping at the temple

by the Saudi government. Several news agencies, including the pan-Arab Al-Hayat,

reported on March 26th, 2005 that Saudi Islamic police, known as the Members of

the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or

Mutawaa’in, found the makeshift temple while raiding a number of apartments in

a district populated by Asians. The sudden raid by the Islamic police, it was

announced, came on suspicion of illicit alcohol manufacturing and distribution

of pornographic materials originating in that area. When the Mutawaa’in

forcibly entered the apartment, of which one room was

festooned with images of Hindu Deities, the police immediately destroyed the

makeshift temple and demanded that worshippers cease their activities. When the

caretaker-priest refused to stop performing his religious rituals, he and two

other worshippers were deported, Al-Hayat reported. There were no reports of

alcohol or pornographic material being discovered.“Desecration and destruction

of a place of worship is a gross of violation of human rights,” said Pawan

Deshpande, member of the Hindu American Foundation Executive Council. “For a

so-called ‘religious’ police force, sponsored by the government, to perpetrate

such depravity against a peaceful Hindu community deserves unequivocal

condemnation by the global community.”All forms of non-Muslim worship are

banned in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia, whose laws conform to Sharia, laws

based on teachings of the Koran, and Wahhabi Islam. Several human rights

organizations have condemned actions by the Saudi

government and its religious police, including extrajudicial punishments for any

outward display of non-Muslim religious symbols. The US Commission on

International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) last month urged the US government to

impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia for violating religious rights.“Mutawwa'in

(religious police) continued to intimidate, abuse and detain citizens and

foreigners with impunity. Most trials were closed, and defendants usually had

no legal counsel,” according to the section on Saudi Arabia in the State

Department annual report on human rights and democracy released on March 28,

2005.The Hindu American Foundation expresses deep concern for the blatant

violations of religious freedom in Saudi Arabia against non-Islamic faiths.

“The intolerance in Saudi Arabia is particularly worrisome because it is

enforced and endorsed by the state government itself,” according to Aseem

Shukla, M.D., member of the Hindu American Foundation Board of Directors.

“We call for the U.S. government to demand that Saudi Arabia implement immediate

reforms with regards to religious freedom in that country.”

http://www.hinduamericanfoundation.org/media_press_release_saudi.htm