Counterterrorism Blog

For those who follow the state of religious freedom, or more properly the extreme lack thereof, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and all the barbaric insanity that can and does flow from the extreme practice of Islam as it is practiced in "the Kingdom" the latest report of such lunacy from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) should come as no surprise. It seems recently a 40 year old Saudi woman who is the mother of three and a financial consultant was in Riyadh on business when she committed the heinous offense of...having coffee with an unrelated male colleague in a Starbucks.

For that, she was arrested and detained by a member of the Saudi religious police, otherwise known as the "Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice." The woman was eventually released, but not after being interrogated in a prison, strip searched and forced to sign a "confession" that she had committed the crime of "seclusion with an unrelated man."

This kind of religious-based persecution, even against fellow Muslims, is commonplace in Saudi Arabia. Not long ago we were treated to reports of a Saudi woman who was the victim of gang rape and then "convicted" of the similar crime of being with unrelated males and sentenced to being whipped. Only international outcry embarrassed Saudi leadership into "commuting" the poor victim's sentence. How many other such victims, especially women, have suffered under these government sanctioned draconian religious rituals that have, unfortunately, remained hidden from international view? Additionally, the public practice of any religion than Islam is strictly forbidden and harshly dealt with in the KSA. One cannot even bring non-Muslim religious items, such as a bible or crucifix, into the country. Such behavior should never be sanctioned by a modern, civilized society; yet so many Western nations, including the United States, essentially give lip service to protesting the madness for fear of "offending" the sensitivities of an oil rich Arab "ally."

Saudi Arabia has consistently been ruled a significant violator of religious freedom and a Country of Particular Concern by the US State Department, as required by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. Just as consistently, our State Department has given the KSA waivers of sanction for its religious freedom violations, ostensibly "to further the purposes of the Act." The original waiver was a 180 day "temporary" waiver after the 2004 State Department report on religious freedom. That was supposed to give the Saudis time to improve their act. Three years later there has been little, perhaps arguably no improvement, yet the waiver of sanctions continues.

Those sanctions could include denying certain Saudi government officials visas to enter the United States. With some gumshoe investigative work in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (DHS/ICE) they could even include potentially identifying Saudi officials already in the US and targeting them for deportation. The US Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended by the Intelligence Reform bill of 2004, enhanced the Government's ability to go after foreign government officials who engage in particularly severe violations of religious freedoms. Clearly, there are Saudi government officials who would so qualify. Unfortunately, such officials continue to enjoy the protection of an official State Department waiver for their religious persecution.