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Saudis Arrest Christian for Entering Mecca [new fingerprint system helps find criminals]
IMRA ^ | 5-24-07

Posted on 05/24/2007 6:50:18 PM PDT by SJackson

Saudis Arrest Christian for Entering Mecca

By Michael Freund The Jerusalem Post, May 25, 2007 www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1178708675932&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Saudi officials have arrested a man in Mecca for being a Christian, saying that the city, which Muslims consider to be holy, is off-limits to non-Muslims. Nirosh Kamanda, a Sri Lankan Christian, was detained by the Saudi Expatriates Monitoring Committee last week after he started to sell goods outside Mecca's Great Mosque.

After running his fingerprints through a new security system, Saudi police discovered that he was a Christian who had arrived in the country six months earlier to take a job as a truck driver in the city of Dammam. Kamanda had subsequently left his place of work and moved to Mecca.

"The Grand Mosque and the holy city are forbidden to non-Muslims," Col. Suhail Matrafi, head of the department of Expatriates Affairs in Mecca, told the Saudi daily Arab News. "The new fingerprints system is very helpful and will help us a lot to discover the identity of a lot of criminals," he said.

Similar restrictions apply to the Saudi city of Medina. In a section entitled, "Traveler's Information," the Web site of the Saudi Embassy in Washington states that, "Mecca and Medina hold special religious significance and only persons of the Islamic faith are allowed entry."

Highway signs at the entrance to Mecca also direct non-Muslims away from the city's environs.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: christian; islam; mecca; medina; muhammadsminions; muslim; religionofpeace; saudiarabia; targetrich
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1 posted on 05/24/2007 6:50:20 PM PDT by SJackson
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]

----------------------------

Between the fingerprint comment and the warning signs there's plenty of potential humor here. Except it's a dead serious problem and not at all funny.

2 posted on 05/24/2007 6:51:43 PM PDT by SJackson (Be careful -- with quotations, you can damn anything, Andre Malraux)
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To: SJackson

He is so dead.


3 posted on 05/24/2007 6:52:20 PM PDT by pnh102
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To: SJackson
Recall that a rather large number of Christians have now fought and died in not one, but two wars to preserve the Saudi state.

Is this what they died for?

4 posted on 05/24/2007 6:53:20 PM PDT by Regulator
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To: SJackson

What would happen if Catholics did the same thing Rome or Jews did it in Jerusalem?


5 posted on 05/24/2007 6:54:57 PM PDT by mbx1231
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To: SJackson

Why do I think that if we made Mecca a smoking hole that the world wouldn’t be any angrier at us than they are now??


6 posted on 05/24/2007 6:58:24 PM PDT by RushingWater (Pres. Bush honors Mexican sovereignty over our own - Pardon Ramos/Campeon/Hernandez)
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To: mbx1231

WTH would Catholics make Rome off limits to none Muslims? [snicker]

As to Mecca & Medina, not allowing non-Muslims prevents dilution of the target’s value.


7 posted on 05/24/2007 6:59:00 PM PDT by ApplegateRanch (Islam: a Satanically Transmitted Disease, spread by unprotected intimate contact with the Koranus.)
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To: SJackson

Why don’t we make the rest of the world off limits to Muslims? Sound like a plan?


8 posted on 05/24/2007 6:59:24 PM PDT by farmer18th
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To: SJackson

read later


9 posted on 05/24/2007 6:59:36 PM PDT by BuffaloJack
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To: SJackson

Well, it’s wrong to ignore someone’s religous rules and go into a place where nobody is supposed to go.

All that said, it does point out the difference between Christianity and Islam, doesn’t it? Muslims say, “Christians not allowed”. Jesus says, “Whosever will, come unto Me.”


10 posted on 05/24/2007 6:59:44 PM PDT by I still care ("Remember... for it is the doom of men that they forget" - Merlin, from Excalibur)
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To: farmer18th

Why not make the U.S. of limits to Muslims?


11 posted on 05/24/2007 7:00:35 PM PDT by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God) .)
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To: SJackson; All
"The Grand Mosque and the holy city are forbidden to non-Muslims,"

Take a good look! This is our enemy! And they do not compromise!

12 posted on 05/24/2007 7:01:00 PM PDT by airborne (Duncan Hunter is the only real choice for honest to goodness conservatives!)
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To: I still care
Well, it’s wrong to ignore someone’s religious rules and go into a place where nobody is supposed to go.

Even when they use their mosques as ammo dumps and military compounds??

13 posted on 05/24/2007 7:03:13 PM PDT by airborne (Duncan Hunter is the only real choice for honest to goodness conservatives!)
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To: SJackson

Whatever else might be said about this (and there is much to say), at least they enforce their laws. That’s more than I can say for whats going on here.


14 posted on 05/24/2007 7:16:55 PM PDT by navyguy (We don't need more youth. What we need is a fountain of SMART.)
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To: airborne

Sorry. Should have qualified that statement.


15 posted on 05/24/2007 7:19:41 PM PDT by I still care ("Remember... for it is the doom of men that they forget" - Merlin, from Excalibur)
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To: I still care
Well, it’s wrong to ignore someone’s religous rules and go into a place where nobody is supposed to go.

I don't think you've thought this through.

The SCOTUS has ruled that all sorts of public expressions of religion must be supressed so as not to infringe on the RIGHTS of people unsympathetic to them. Are these RIGHTS real RIGHTS belong to all people? Or merely a tyrannical whim of the SCOTUS ?

16 posted on 05/24/2007 7:20:05 PM PDT by dr_lew
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To: I still care

No problem.

I’m still learning myself.


17 posted on 05/24/2007 7:23:14 PM PDT by airborne (Duncan Hunter is the only real choice for honest to goodness conservatives!)
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To: dr_lew

SCOTUS does not respect the US Constitution or US citizens
as it eagerly genuflects to any foreign Court or Caliphate.


18 posted on 05/24/2007 7:24:07 PM PDT by Diogenesis (Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum)
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To: ApplegateRanch
As to Mecca & Medina, not allowing non-Muslims prevents dilution of the target’s value.

Hmmmmmmmm, I think you have something there.

19 posted on 05/24/2007 7:31:47 PM PDT by Vigilanteman (Are there any men left in Washington? Or are there only cowards? Ahmad Shah Massoud)
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To: farmer18th

I’d vote for that!


20 posted on 05/24/2007 7:54:29 PM PDT by Shadowstrike (Be polite, Be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.)
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