Only posting a link!
As a follow up on the previous posts: like political prisoners in Cuba, here is a group of nonpersons. Their suffering receives no media attention.
http://sb.od.org/index.php?supp_page=saudi_02
They are underground Christians in Saudi Arabia, worshiping in secret a la Roman catacombs. They are mostly migrant workers from the Philippines, heartbreakingly poor.
Here is a quote.
There were credible reports that the authorities continued to torture and otherwise abuse prisoners, including foreigners in 1998. A common method of torture is beating, especially ‘fallaqa,’ which is a beating on the soles of the feet. The authorities also deprive prisoners of sleep.
Expatriate Christians who have been in jail in Saudi Arabia have made well-known the situation in Saudi prisons. Filipino Christian Oswaldo Magdangal wrote a horrifying booklet (‘Sentenced to Death’) about his time of imprisonment in Saudi Arabia. Arrested in 1992, Magdangal was sentenced to be hanged on 25 December 1992. He was kept in strict isolation, was interrogated many times and tortured excessively. Beatings on his foot soles were common practice. Magdangal was unexpectedly released after foreign pressure and deported to the Philippines on the day he was supposed to be hanged.
More recent examples are seven Indian Christians who were arrested on 22 December 1995 when the Mutawwa’in raided a house congregation. 54 Christians had gathered for Christmas prayer as the religious police intervened. They interrogated the Christians and arrested seven Christians whom they suspected of being church leaders. The Christians were abused so severely that friends could hardly recognise two of them when they were released. The released Christians told their friends that the Mutawwa’in had made extensive use of kicking, hitting, and slapping them while at the same time extolling the greatness of Islam.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
