Shiite pilgrims clash with Saudi police in Madina Al Munnawara

[Jeddawi]

Shiite protests in Wahhabi-led Saudi Arabia

3 killed in Madina Munnawara unrest: Sources By DONNA ABU-NASR – 3 hours ago

 

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) —

 

Informed sources have confirmed that security forces in Saudi Arabia have killed at least three Shia pilgrims in the holy city of Medina.

 

A prominent Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia appealed to King Abdullah to put an end to ``extremist practices and insults'' by members of the Wahhabi religious police against Shiite pilgrims following repeated incidents at a revered cemetery.

 

Sheik Hassan al-Saffar's posted the appeal on his Web site on Monday, following reports of confrontations on Friday and Monday between Shiites and riot police at the al-Baqee Cemetery in Medina, Islam's second-holiest city.

 

Prominent Saudi intellectuals has asked the government to hold an inquiry into the behaviour of Wahhabi religious police.Shiite Muslims are shouting anti-government slogans and demanding more freedoms in rare protests amid the minority's worst confrontations in years with authorities in this overwhelmingly Wahhabi kingdom.

 

Prominent Shiite clerics and intellectuals called on the government Wednesday to launch a fair investigation into a dispute last week that triggered the unrest.

 

Hundreds of protesters in the poor Shiite town of Awwamiya carried banners saying "Down with the government" and spray-painted the slogan on billboards Tuesday, witnesses said. One said youths threw stones at a police post before officers fired in the air to disperse the crowd, which included women. No casualties were reported.

 

Clashes between Shiites and religious police also were reported Monday and Tuesday outside a cemetery at the center of the latest uproar.

 

The Wahhabi majority has long had strained relations with Shiites , who are a small minority of the country's 22 million people. Considered infidels under the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam widely followed in Saudi Arabia, Shiites routinely complain of discrimination and outspoken Shiite critics have been jailed.

 

The latest eruption of tensions began with an argument Friday night near a cemetery in Medina, Islam's second holiest city, that contains the graves of revered imams.

 

Shiites say members of the religious police who maintain an office at the al-Baqee Cemetery filmed female pilgrims and refused to hand over the tapes or destroy them. A Saudi official blamed Shiite pilgrims for the trouble, accusing them of performing religious rituals offensive to other worshippers and authorities at the cemetery.

 

Shiites say riot police were heavy-handed in dealing with the pilgrims, beating them with batons and arresting some.

 

The protests came a week after King Abdullah ordered the most significant changes in government, the armed forces, the judiciary and the religious establishment since he became king in 2005, but left Shiites feeling left out of the reforms.

 

Shiites had hoped for appointments as ministers or representation in the council of senior scholars that had been restructured to include all schools of Wahhabi Islam. But no Shiites were chosen for those positions.

 

"There's a feeling that the Shiites' ambitions have not been realized as hoped, and that could have played an indirect role in inflaming emotions," said Najib al-Khonaizi, a Shiite columnist. "We have to admit that there's tension in the Shiite street."

 

Many Shiites say authorities deliberately provoked the dispute at the cemetery.

 

"There was a flagrant aggression on women's rights and the Shiite visitors," Sheik Hussein al-Mustapha, a prominent Shiite cleric, told The Associated Press. "It was a premeditated action by extremist men who want to put an end to visits by Shiite visitors."

 

"We demand an investigation into the incident in order to put an end to these ugly practices," he said.

 

A Saudi official put the blame on the Shiite pilgrims, saying they triggered the dispute by practicing rituals deemed by others to be "religious infractions," such as the practice of Shiites to grab a handful of dust as a blessing and pray at the graves of the imams.

 

The official, who would not allow his name to be used, said such "infractions" are frequent at al-Baqee and usually are dealt with quietly by asking pilgrims to stop. But last week, he charged, a large crowd of Shiites was bent on provoking other worshippers and authorities at the cemetery.

 

Asked if members of the religious police had videotaped Shiite female pilgrims, the official said that if there was filming it was to take evidence of the infractions and not for voyeurism.

 

The official said nine of the Shiite visitors to the cemetery were arrested. He said the government was keen to find out the truth and the reasons for the escalation. He said the perpetrators would be held responsible, but did not elaborate.

 

Wahhabis, crucial allies in the Saud conquest of the disparate regions that became Saudi Arabia in 1932, were awarded control of religious affairs.

 

Discrimination against Shia Muslims and Sunni Sufis, among others, intensified after armed Wahhabi extremists took over Mecca's Grand Mosque in 1979, demanding that a more puritanical form of Islam be applied in the country. Though the government quelled the uprising and executed its leaders, authorities were shaken by the incident, and lest other Wahhabis defy them, they allowed them more rein.

 

Sufism had previously been predominant in Hejaz, the western region of Saudi Arabia, which includes Muhammad's birthplace, Mecca; Medina, where he is buried; and the Red Sea port city of Jeddah. Muslims prayed often at shrines where the prophet's daughter Fatima, his wife Khadija and his companions were buried. Mawlids were public affairs with entire cities decked out in lights, and parades and festivities commemorating the prophet's birthday and his ascension to Jerusalem.

 

When the al-Saud family that would later come to rule Saudi Arabia took over Hejaz in the 1920s, the Wahhabis banned mawlids as a form of heresy and destroyed the historic shrines of Khadija, Fatima and the prophet's companions which has always been a tension point between the Sunnis and Shias against the current Wahhabi regime.