Posted on 01/30/2002 11:50:15 PM PST by JohnHuang2
Three Ethiopian Christians detained for the past six months without charges claim they were severely beaten and tormented this week under the authority of a Saudi prison official in Jeddah."Being suspended with chains, each of us were flogged 80 times with a flexible metal cable and also severely kicked and beaten with anything that came into their hands," said a letter from the Ethiopians obtained by Washington, D.C.-based International Christian Concern. "This was witnessed by over 1,000 deportees."
The Christians are among 14 foreigners who were detained last summer by Saudi Arabia for their Christian activities. Eight were deported to their countries of origin earlier this month and another was booked on an outbound flight last night.
The Saudi Ministry of Interior arrested the men after receiving reports in June of their participation in Christian gatherings that included Saudi converts to Christianity. Saudi law applies the death penalty to citizens who choose to abandon Islam. None of the Christians were formally charged, however.
The three Ethiopians – Tinsaie Gizachew, Baharu Mengistu and Gebeyehu Tefera – say their treatment was in retaliation for a petition they sent to the Ethiopian Consulate in Jeddah.
The Ethiopians said in the letter obtained by ICC that on Monday "by order of the Bremen Prison Commander Major Bender Sultan Shabani and with no hearing, trial, or process of law, we were illegally subjected to severe punishment and physical abuse.
"Our bodies are wounded, swollen, terribly bruised and with great pain," the men said. "Baharu's kidney may have been damaged and he is passing blood with his urine. When we reported to the prison hospital for treatment, we were slapped and told to come back after we were dead. It seems as if we were brought to Bremen Deportation Prison to be tortured and tormented to death."
The men said that about one month ago the regional authority, Governor Prince Abdul Majid, decided to deport them after "much pressure from several governments and international human rights organizations."
The Ethiopians noted that they believe the governor had no knowledge of their recent beating and needs to be informed.
"The room we are in is only 11.5 x 30 meters, with at times up to 1,800 men of all nationalities crammed into this tiny space," the Ethiopians said. "There is no furniture – no space to lie down except for short naps taken in shifts on the floor. About 80 percent of the inmates, including us, have been infected with contagious diseases. Some have AIDS. The toilets are overflowing. The food is not clean. When we complain, we are chained and handcuffed as punishment."
Mengistu is scheduled to leave Saudi Arabia on Saturday with his wife, who is in her eighth month of pregnancy.
"We hope there will not be a delay because of this flogging and our present condition," the letter said.
ICC reported that one of its representatives confronted an Ethiopian Consulate official in Jeddah by phone on Tuesday. Since then the Ethiopian vice consul and his assistant have made several visits to the prison and arranged with Saudi prison officials to take Mengistu to a hospital for treatment.
Mengistu, however, according to an ICC statement, has "refused medical treatment, fearing it may be a convenient place for them to finish him off and blame it on medical complications."
Some medication has been sent to him by friends from the outside, ICC said.
According to London-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide, two other Christians also await deportation, Filipino Dennis Moreno (in some reports listed as Dennis Morello) and Ismail "Worku" Abubaker, another Ethiopian, who was transferred to a prison in Mecca on Jan. 8 in order to "settle his affairs."
On Jan. 12, authorities deported Kebrom Haile, an Eritrean. On Jan. 18, Afobunor Okey Buliamin of Nigeria, Iskander Menghis of Eritrea and Ethiopians Mesfin Berhanu, Mubarek Hussain Keder and Genet Haileab flew home. Joseph Girmaye of Eritera and Beferdu Fikre of Ethiopia were deported last weekend.
CSW said that Prabhu Isaac of India was booked on an outbound flight scheduled Wednesday night, according to a spokesman at the Indian Consulate in Jeddah. Isaac was refused exit at the airport twice this month. On Jan. 17, the airport computer mistakenly registered his wife as still being in Saudi Arabia and on Jan. 27 he was found to have an outstanding traffic penalty.
To the Moslems, their religion is the one and only right religion, and this was always the case .... to them all the Biblical good guys - Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, etc. - were solid Moslems, so the Holy Land promised to Abraham and Moses was ALWAYS a Moslem country; Christians and Jews are the apostates and heretics and always "the enemy". Therefore, whenever Moslems "liberate" any territory, the Christian and Jewish populations, no matter what their real history might be, are regarded as enemy aliens ... they fall into just two categories: those who have surrendered to the Moslem conquerors (the dhimmis) and those who still at war with Moslems. The latter are fit targets for jihad and may be killed, raped, enslaved, plundered, etc., at whim. The former, the dhimmis, are still enemy aliens but essentially under a sort of a house arrest; they have no legal status, cannot hold public office, cannot own land, cannot testify in court (at least not against a Moslem), are limited to the most menial of occupations, they must pay an extra tax or tribute to their conquerors (jizya) and they have no enforceable rights. Their presence is "tolerated" only so long as convenient; they must not complain about their situation - and most certainly not complain to any foreign "enemy". Their houses of worship must be kept few and small, and no sign or sound of their religion must be detected in public. As their religious opinions are, by definition, wrong, there must be no dialogue with them, no compromise, no chance that their ideas or fashions will be borrowed by Moslems.
The restrictions and disabilities of dhimmitude are never to be revoked ... but bribery (or some sort of favor from an interested European power) will sometimes procure an easing of enforcement.
This situation is worse than apartheid, since the white South Africans at least pretended that blacks were getting a comparable separate society with their own professionals and opportunities. It is even worse than slavery in some respects.
The remarkable thing is that, throughout Moslem history and especially in the last several centuries, Christian denominations (including the Vatican) have not spoken out against dhimmitude ... partly because the Christian communities and shrines in Islamic countries are essentially hostages, and in some instances because the European countries wanted to align various Arab governments against other European countries.
Naturally, to Moslems, Christians are not only enemies but their religious opinions are so inimical, so subversive, that any act that might convey their religious sentiments to anyone (even a non-Moslem of a different religion), is regarded as an act of rebellion which causes them to revert from the status of dhimmi to that of an active enemy in the perpetual jihad.
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