RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia has deported the last of 35 Ethiopian Christians who were arrested during a December prayer meeting and imprisoned during the ensuing months.
The now-deported Ethiopian Christians — 29 women and six men — were praying Dec. 15 in the city of Jeddah when Saudi police raided the private home in which they were meeting. On Aug. 1 the Saudis completed deportation of the Ethiopians, according to International Christian Concern (ICC).
Saudi officials assaulted, harassed and sought to coerce the Christians to convert to Islam while in prison, ICC reported. They strip-searched the women, including searches of their body cavities, and physically abused the men, some of the Ethiopians told ICC by phone during their imprisonment.
A Muslim preacher came to the prison at the authorities’ request in February in an effort to persuade the Christians to leave their faith.
“The Muslim preacher vilified Christianity, denigrated the Bible and told us that Islam is the only true religion,” a female prisoner told ICC by phone.
Saudi Arabia — which bars all public expressions of religious belief other than an extremely strict interpretation of Islam referred to as Wahhabism — is one of the world’s worst violators of religious liberty. The U.S. State Department has designated the Middle East nation as a “country of particular concern,” a designation reserved for governments that are particularly severe in violating religious freedom.
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