Sunday, May 15, 2005

HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS SAYS THAT SAUDI ARABIA HAS KIDNAPPED AN INDIAN CHRISTIAN
They State That He Was Abducted By Saudi Religious Police For Possession Of A Bible And Continues To Be Held Incommunicado In Saudi Arabia

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA (ANS) -- News has just become available in the West that an Indian Christian has been adducted on a street in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and is being held incommunicado in the desert Kingdom.

This information comes from the Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC).

The man, they say, is Samkutty (Sam) Varghese, an Indian national who had traveled to Saudi Arabia on Jan 26th 2005.

“He was staying in Riyadh until his abduction off the streets by the Muttawa (Saudi religious police),” said a spokesperson for ICC. “It is being reported to us that the Muttawa approached Sam as he was waiting for friends near the city center of Riyadh on the evening of March 9th at approximately 7:00 pm. Mr. Varghese was awaiting a visa extension from the Saudi government.

“The Muttawa asked Varghese for his passport. However, he was only able to give them a copy because the Saudi government had taken his passport since he was requesting a visa extension. They then asked him what was in his bag. In his bag, he had one Bible in the Hindi language. The Muttawa then took Mr. Varghese away and there has been no communication from him since.”

According to ICC, friends of Mr. Varghese went to the local police station but the police would not disclose any information in his regard. Samkutty Varghese has a wife and small children who are waiting on word of his whereabouts back in India.

“This is just the latest outrageous example of Saudi Arabia’s complete disregard of human rights and their zero-tolerance policy towards people of other religions at home, while they spend billions of dollars every year building mosques and promoting Islam around the Western world,” said the ICC spokesperson. “The Saudi’s have made a lot of noise recently about their efforts to clean up the religious radicals and the Muttawa but it seems that it is business as usual.”

ICC requests concerned individuals to contact a local Saudi embassy to politely express their concern as well as to request the release of Samkutty Varghese. His home address is: Kalakunnel Puthenveedu Kurampakkara, P.O. Pathanapuram, Kerala, India, and his passport number is E 8421022.

ICC is a Washington-DC based human rights organization that exists to help persecuted Christians worldwide. ICC delivers humanitarian aid, trains and supports persecuted pastors, raises awareness in the US regarding the problem of persecution, and is an advocate for the persecuted on Capitol Hill and the State Department. For additional information or for an interview, contact ICC at 800-422-5441. Its website can be found at www.persecution.org.