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Saudi authorities release Egyptian Christians
Future of Riyadh jobs still uncertain
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (02.12.2003)/HRWF Int. (03.12.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - Two Egyptian Coptic Christians jailed by Saudi authorities have been released 17 days after their arrest for establishing an expatriate house church in the capital of Riyadh.
Dr. Sabry Awad Gayed and Eskander Guirguis Eskander, both 38, were informed when they were discharged from prison on November 11 that they were being released with the approval of their sponsors.
This means that the charges are not dropped against them, Gayeds wife, Dr. Salwa Khalil, told Compass from Cairo. The case is not closed yet. So we dont know what the next step will be.
Dr. Khalil said she was informed that the two men were released by specific orders of Prince Sultan, Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense in the Saudi kingdom. The prince had been asked in a written complaint to review the file against the two Christians, said to be jailed for no valid reason.
The Saudi Ministry of Interior typically deports expatriate Christians accused of involvement in illegal worship activities. But after Gayed was set free, his Saudi employer told him that he was trying to transfer him to one of his other medical clinics in a different area.
According to Gayeds wife, fanatic Egyptian Muslims had complained against the Coptic Christian pediatrician after he became manager of his Saudi sponsors medical clinic in El Batha.
Gayeds accusers reportedly filed an official complaint against him to the Saudi governments Committee to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice, declaring that a Christian should not be allowed to manage the clinic and direct its Muslim employees. Under Islamic law, it is illegal for a non-Muslim to hold any position of authority over a Muslim.
Fanatic Muslims from Egypt are causing problems now for Christians working in Saudi Arabia, one Arab Christian employed in Riyadh for the past three years told Compass. Basically, the Saudis are just interested in making money, and they believe Christians are good and trustworthy employees. But some Egyptian extremists complain against us, calling us infidels.
Both men were arrested at their homes on October 25, registered at a police station and then jailed. They were accused of establishing a temple [non-Muslim place of worship]. The two Copts had regularly attended a house church for expatriate Arab Christians meeting privately in Riyadh for several years.
After Prince Sultan reviewed their file, he ordered Gamel and Eskander released on November 4; however, it took a full week for the princes release order to be implemented.
According to relatives and friends of the released prisoners, the two Christians were not physically abused and were given respectful treatment during their 17 days in custody.
Saudi Arabia strictly forbids Christians and other non-Muslims to meet for public worship. But leading members of the royal family continue to insist that non-Muslims living in the kingdom are free to worship privately within their own homes.
Saudi prince orders jailed Christians released
Two Egyptian Copts Freed After 10 Days
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (04.11.2003)/HRWF Int. (16.10.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - Two Egyptian Christians jailed in the Saudi capital of Riyadh 10 days ago for leading a house church were ordered released this morning by Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud.
Sabry Awad Gayed, a pediatrician working in a clinic in El Batha for the past four years, and Eskander Guirguis Eskandar, employed as a carpenter, were arrested on October 25 on accusations of establishing a non-Muslim place of worship.
On the day of their arrest, Saudi police reportedly questioned why the two of them and Eskandars brother had three Bibles in their possession. Each one of us has our own Bible, the men explained.
After being registered at a local police station, the two men were put in jail. When brought before the prosecutor, they were informed they were accused of evangelism and establishing a temple [non-Muslim place of worship]. However, the authorities produced no proof of either charge.
The two Coptic Christians have met privately for worship in homes with other expatriate Christians since they took jobs in Saudi Arabia.
Two years ago, their house church was investigated by a Muslim organization which came to inquire why they were staying at home and not attending Friday prayers. When the vigilante group found that the 150 people meeting together were all Christians, they left them alone.
After receiving a written complaint that two Egyptians had been jailed for apparently no reason, Prince Sultan reportedly asked to see their file yesterday. The prince serves as Saudi Arabias Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense.
Just a week before Gayeds and Eskandars detention, Prince Sultan was questioned by journalists, asking if the Saudi government planned to allow Americans to build churches in the Kingdom.
The prince was quoted in Riyadhs official newspaper as replying, There will be no church built in the land of Saudi Arabia. But everybody has the freedom to worship in his own home.
According to Gayeds wife, Dr. Salwa Khalil, her husband and Eskandar were treated in a respectful way by the Saudi police during their imprisonment.
I was able to call Sabry almost daily through the cell phone of some friend visiting him, she said, and the police allowed him to answer. She is currently in Cairo with their two small daughters.
It is unclear whether Saudi authorities plan to allow the two Coptic Christians to continue in their job contracts, or if they will deport the men back to Egypt.
Saudis suspended 17 schoolgirls
Associated Press (15.10.2003) C HRWF Int. (16.10.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - At least 17 expatriate teenage girls in eastern Saudi Arabia have been suspended from school for a week for uncovering their faces on the school bus, the school's headmistress said in remarks published Wednesday.
The girls also had to sign an agreement not to repeat the act, said Malika Al-Duseiri, headmistress of the Eighth High School in Dammam, 250 miles northeast of the capital Riyadh.
"I noticed that they had removed their head covers on the school bus when I did a surprise call," Al-Duseiri told the daily Okaz. The girls' nationalities were not specified and attempts to reach the school were unsuccessful.
Okaz quoted family members as saying that 20 girls had been suspended since Tuesday but the headmistress referred only to 17.
The families are planning to complain to authorities against the school's decision, the paper said.
All women in Saudi Arabia, including foreigners, must be covered from head to toe in public, in compliance with the country's strict interpretation of Islam. The kingdom only issued picture identity cards to women last year after a three-year debate.
The new photo ID shows the woman's face but her hair must be covered. Previously, women were registered on their fathers' or husbands' papers.
Mobile phones with built-in cameras are banned in the kingdom as they may be used to take pictures of uncovered women.
Growing demands for political and social reform - especially for women's rights - have been countered by the conservative religious establishment.
Last month, prominent clerics and academics issued a statement warning against calls for equality and increased rights for women, saying such efforts aim to make Muslim women more like "infidel" Western women.
Deported Eritrean Christian returns home
Saudi Arabia ousts "Christian Preacher" for five years
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass Direct (18.08.2003)/ HRWF Int. (19.08.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A week after he was deported from Saudi Arabia for doing Christian proselytizing among Muslims, Eritrean Christian Girmaye Ambaye confirmed that he had been banned from returning to the strict Muslim kingdom for the next five years.
Shackled in handcuffs and under Saudi military guard, Ambaye was escorted from his jail cell in Jeddahs Bremen deportation center to the stairs of the Saudia Airlines plane on which he was flown back to the Eritrean capital of Asmara on the night of August 9.
Ambaye said his guards at the Jeddah airport told curious inquirers, including the airlines ticket agent checking him in, that he was a preacher of Christianity who was being deported from Saudi Arabia for violating Muslim laws against proselytizing.
Ambaye, 42, had been jailed in the Saudi port city since March 25, when he was arrested for witnessing about his Christian faith to Muslims. He is the 13th member of an active Ethiopian-Eritrean Christian congregation to be jailed and deported in the past two years by Saudi authorities in Jeddah for prohibited Christian activities.
Although Ambaye was allegedly slated for deportation by early June, the Eritrean Consulate in Jeddah said the process was delayed over the sale and transfer of a car registered in his name, as well as a traffic fine he had reportedly not paid.
Ambaye told Compass that the final delay the week before his deportation involved the location of his passport, which he had left with an acquaintance for safekeeping until his departure was ordered.
Upon his arrival in Asmara, Ambaye said, Eritrean immigration authorities took him into custody and interrogated him about the details of his arrest and deportation. They even asked about my long hair, laughed Ambaye, who explained that he was not able to shave or cut his hair during his nearly five months of imprisonment.
Although Eritrean officials released him and told him he was free to go home to his family, they said he would be summoned later for more questioning. Ambayes identity card and passport were confiscated by the airport police, who issued him photocopies of the documents.
In a telephone interview with Compass on August 16 from his familys home in Mendefera, 25 miles south of Asmara, Ambaye said his family did not meet him at the airport because he had no way to inform them of his arrival. After his arrival, he stayed for a few days with friends in Asmara until he was able to travel to Mendefera.
After he was jailed, Ambaye said he realized his detention in a crowded group cell gave him opportunity to share his faith in Jesus Christ with dozens of other prisoners awaiting deportation. He estimated he had explained the Christian gospel to 600 of his cellmates during those 20 weeks. As a result, he said, 42 of the prisoners indicated they had decided to become Christians.
I felt that Jesus Christ was with me in the jail, he said, and now I know Him so much better. Despite the strong psychological pressures he was under, he said he was never beaten or mistreated physically.
Everyone knew my crime was being a preacher of Christianity, he said.
Ambaye said he did not know what he would do now that he has returned to Eritrea, which he left 15 years ago to find work as a tailor in Saudi Arabia. I will rest first, and then I will see what the Lord will show me, he said
Saudi Arabia deports Eritrean Christian
Girmaye Ambaye released after 20 weeks
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass Direct (11.08.2003)/ HRWF Int. (12.08.2003)-Website http://www.hrwf.net-Email:info@hrwf.net - After 20 weeks in a Saudi jail for participating in prohibited Christian activities, Eritrean Christian Girmaye Ambaye was deported from Jeddah by plane back to his home country on Saturday, August 9.
A member of Ambayes congregation confirmed today that he was requested to bring a suitcase of the prisoners personal effects to the Jeddah airport on Saturday evening, where he handed it over to Ambaye before the Eritrean boarded his flight back to Asmara. So it seems he was really going, the source said.
According to one of his brothers who spoke to Compass today, Ambaye has remained in Asmara, the Eritrean capital, since his arrival on Saturday night. The brother said he did not know where Girmaye was staying, although it is assumed that he is being interviewed by Eritrean authorities regarding the details of his forced deportation by the Saudi government.
He telephoned from Asmara to us, to tell us he has come from Saudi Arabia, the brother confirmed from the family home in Mendefera, 25 miles south of Asmara. But there is some problem at the airport, so he said he will come home to see us on Wednesday.
Ambaye had been jailed in the Saudi port city of Jeddah since March 25, when local police put him under arrest for witnessing about his Christian faith to Muslim Arabs. He was incarcerated at the Bremen deportation center, where he was told he must leave the country because Saudi Arabia does not allow Christian proselytizing.
Ambayes deportation from Jeddah had first been said to be stalled over the sale and transfer of a car registered in his name. Later, he was informed of an alleged traffic fine that he had failed to pay.
Although Ambaye signed all the car transfer papers brought to him in early June and still more in the first week of July, in mid July the Eritrean Consulate told him that Saudi immigration computers showed an unpaid traffic fine against him of 950 Saudi rials, just under $300.
Eritrean Consulate sources claimed that Ambaye was resisting deportation, preferring to remain in the jail to share his faith with his mostly Muslim cellmates. Ambaye, however, told Compass on a mobile phone call into his prison cell on July 14 that this was not true. He did want to leave the jail and return home, he said, but he had no money to pay the fine.
Ambayes expatriate Christian friends in Jeddah reportedly collected money to pay the fine, clearing the jailed Christian for his release and return to Eritrea.
Last week, an Eritrean Consulate representative in Jeddah told Compass that a receipt arrived at the consulate on August 3 proving that Ambayes outstanding traffic fine had been paid and clearing him for departure on the next direct flight to Asmara on August 5.
But a consulate official who spoke with Compass on the morning of August 9 claimed to be unaware that the Eritrean Christian had not been deported as expected on the previous Tuesday. The consulate switchboard has deferred or hung up on all subsequent telephone calls from Compass to the officer monitoring the case.
Now 42, Ambaye became active in an Ethiopian-Eritrean Christian congregation in Jeddah five years ago, he told Compass. He had worked as a tailor in Saudi Arabia since 1987. During the past two years, a dozen other members of his congregation have been jailed and deported by Jeddah police authorities, who keep the church leaders under frequent surveillance.
Source: Compass Direct, P.O. Box 27250, Santa Ana CA 92799-7250, USA
TEL: 949-862-0314 / FAX: 949-752-6536
E-mail: info@compassdirect.org - Website: www.compassdirect.org
Eritrean Christians still jailed
Unpaid Traffic Fine Declared Last Hurdle for Deportation
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (15.07.2003)/ HRWF Int. (29.07.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - As soon as Girmaye Ambaye pays off a traffic fine he owes, officials in Jeddah declared today, the Eritrean Christian jailed nearly four months ago for prohibited Christian activities can be deported from Saudi Arabia back to his home country.
He has to pay 950 Saudi rials to the Saudi government for a traffic violation, an Eritrean Consulate representative told Compass by telephone.
A little less than $300, the alleged fine appeared on the governments immigration and customs computers last week, when the Eritrean Consulate was finalizing the paperwork for Ambayes exit permit and formal deportation.
Ambaye, 42, has been jailed since March 25 at the Bremen deportation center in Jeddah. He became active in an Ethiopian-Eritrean Christian congregation in Jeddah five years ago.
I was arrested because the police caught me preaching the gospel, Ambaye commented yesterday. They told me that there is no pardon in Saudi Arabia for proselytizing, and that I must leave the country.
But the Eritreans deportation has been stalled for weeks because of the ownership of a car registered in his name. Last week, Ambaye reportedly signed papers to send his car to the junkyard after his friends were unable to sell it.
The consulate representative said he was told Ambayes friends were collecting money for him so that he could pay the fine and be cleared for deportation. The papers from the consulate are finished, and theres nothing else, he said. He has to pay the money, and then he can leave.
In mid-June, a consular official told Compass that, according to the case officers visiting Ambaye in prison, This guy is nuts. He doesnt want to leave the prison. He is doing his religious persuading inside there. Declaring that Ambayes preaching in his detention cell had angered the guards, the official commented, What he was doing is very dangerous inside the jail.
Its not true that I am not wanting to leave this place, Ambaye told someone who talked with him yesterday. They want me to pay this money, but I have no money. Ambaye said he was not sure if he really owed this traffic fine to the Saudi authorities, as the Eritrean Consulate officials claimed, or if in fact they were demanding a bribe to go into their own pockets.
But I am all right here, Ambaye said, despite a persistent cough caused by the dozens of heavy smokers crowded into his cell. I am happy in Jesus Christ even here. I only want the will of God to be done in my life.
Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, is only a 45-minute plane flight south of Jeddah across the Red Sea. Weekly direct flights to Eritrea are scheduled on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
A tailor by trade who has lived and worked in Saudi Arabia since 1987, Girmaye is the 13th member of his congregation to be arrested and deported from Saudis largest port city in the past two years. Local security police continue to keep its members under surveillance, threatening some to make them stop attending the worship services.
The Saudi government prohibits public Christian worship among its expatriate residents, routinely arresting and deporting foreigners nabbed by the police for infractions of the kingdoms strict interpretation of Islamic law. The jailed Christians are rarely given formal charges in writing or taken to face a court of law.
Saudi Arabia sends 1,000 preachers back to school
Reuters (25.06.2003)/ HRWF Int. (26.06.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Saudi Arabia has suspended more than 1,000 Muslim preachers until they are retrained to promote religious moderation and reject the extremism of Al Qaeda militants, a government official said on Tuesday.
Abdul Rahman Al Matroudi, deputy minister at Saudi Arabia's religious affairs ministry, said clerics would be instructed to tell worshippers the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks which was believed to be carried out mainly by Saudi hijackers violated Islamic teachings.
The suspensions were part of a regular review of Saudi preachers, not a reaction to last month's suicide bombings in Riyadh or pressure to rein in a religious establishment blamed in the West for helping foster Muslim extremism, he said.
They have been told what happened on Sept. 11 and (attacks) in other places are against Islam and they have to tell the people that this is the stand which Muslims should take, Matroudi told Reuters.
Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, has more than 50,000 mosques, each with a prayer leader or preacher.
If someone is found not fit to be in that job he will be asked to resign, or be retrained. That is what is happening. It has nothing to do with what is going on (after the bombings), Matroudi said, adding scholars found some preachers had a shortage of knowledge.
The teaching which is given to them is the true teaching of Islam, which is always against extremism, he said, adding the training emphasises moderation.
The moves began before the Riyadh bombings, which killed 35 people and were blamed on Al Qaeda. But those attacks and ensuing shootouts between militants and police in Mecca, the holiest of Muslim cities, have shaken Saudi Arabia.
The kingdom has cracked down on a number of radical preachers it blames for inciting violence. At least three clerics have been arrested for encouraging support of militants.
Anti-US sentiment
Saudi Arabia has been trying to control anti-US sentiment fuelled by the American-led occupation of Iraq, Washington's robust support for Israel and a perceived US smear campaign against the kingdom and Islam after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Fifteen of the 19 suspected hijackers of the planes that crashed into targets in New York and Washington were Saudis. The United States said the attacks were the work of Saudi-born Osama Ben Laden's Al Qaeda.
Western critics have blamed Saudi Arabia's education system and deeply conservative religious establishment for creating a permissive environment in which anti-US militancy flourished.
Unfortunately some of the Americans do not know exactly what is going on here. Therefore, sometimes they give their judgement without knowing our culture, Matroudi said.
Our imams and our preachers, all of them are criticising the thought and the way of al Qaeda.
Bin Laden won some support among ordinary Saudis over his demand for the withdrawal of US troops stationed in the Gulf state since the 1990-91 Gulf War. Most are leaving after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in neighbouring Iraq.
But Saudi officials say any popular support for Al Qaeda was eroded by the bombings in Riyadh and the discovery of militant cells in Mecca and Medina, Islam's holiest cities.
Saudi Arabia deports Ethiopian Christian
Eritrean Prisoner Starts Tenth Week in Jail
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (02.06.2003)/ HRWF Int. (03.06.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Two and one-half weeks after an Ethiopian Christian was deported from Saudi Arabia for alleged Christian activities, a fellow Christian prisoner of Eritrean citizenship remains jailed in Jeddah.
Girmaye Ambaye, who was arrested on March 25 in the Saudi kingdoms largest port city, reportedly cannot be processed for deportation to Eritrea until local authorities complete the official transfer of a car purchased in his name.
Maybe they will finish it this week, so that he could leave for Eritrea on the June 7 flight, one of Ambayes close friends told Compass from Jeddah today.
According to a fellow Christian who visited Ambaye on May 28, the jailed Eritrean Christian continues to experience some health problems while incarcerated in a crowded waiting cell at the Bremen deportation center at Terhil. He is still a little bit sick, the source reported.
Both Ambaye and Endeshawe Yizengaw had been active in the ministry of the Ethiopian-Eritrean Christian congregation in Jeddah, where they lived for the past 12 and 10 years, respectively. After the men had their residence permits secretly revoked in March and April, they were tracked down and arrested by Saudi police.
Yizengaw, who is 32 and unmarried, was deported to Addis Ababa on May 16, only 20 days after his arrest on April 27.
On the day of his arrest, Yizengaw said the security police literally tore his house apart, searching through all six rooms. Finally they brutally beat me on the face, he said, leaving his left ear badly injured.
Their stated objective, he said, was to force him to name every Arab Muslim to whom he had ever preached Christ.
Yizengaw, who speaks Arabic as well as his native Amharic and Tigrinya languages, told Compass that his interrogators accused him of trying to evangelize Saudi Muslims and of receiving American and British funding in payment for it.
Yizengaw said he does not deny talking about Christ on a regular basis with Muslims, and that he was well aware that by doing so he was putting his life at risk. But I did not get a penny from anybody, no organization or even a church. God was on my side, and He blessed me.
In an effort to conceal their real reason for arresting and deporting him, he said, the Saudi authorities told the Ethiopian Consulate that Yizengaw had been involved in making alcohol and running a prostitution ring.
Both his hands and legs were kept cuffed while he was in jail, he said, and he was repeatedly pressed to identify all his Muslim friends.
They wanted to do some bad things to us, to punish us, Yizengaw told Compass from Addis Ababa last week, but the mighty Lord was with us, and they couldnt do that.
Despite the fact that all of their jailers and most of their 300 or more cellmates at any given time were Muslims, Yizengaw said, Girmaye and I just told every one of them that Jesus is Lord. In response, he recalled, One police officer was saying to cut our heads off.
The Ethiopian said he had been taken in for questioning about a year ago, when seven armed police officers raided the Jeddah fellowship where he was preaching. Finally they just gave me my residence permit and let me out from the jail, he said. But he told them clearly then that within his own home he was not going to stop preaching and worshipping God.
Since that day on, they have focused on me, he said. He was summoned two more times for interrogation before his final arrest in late April.
Saudi security police have kept Yizengaws congregation under regular, open surveillance for the past three months. According to the Christian advocacy group Middle East Concern, at least eight other members of the group have been called in recently for questioning and warned to stop attending worship services. Last week, some of the church elders again spotted security police who were following them, a local source confirmed to Compass.
But the church of our great Jesus is continuing in Jeddah, Yizengaw declared. There are many, many believers there.
Non-Muslims free to practice faiths in private
by P.K. Abdul Ghafour
Arab News (09.04.2003)/ HRWF Int. (14.04.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Deputy Interior Minister Prince Ahmad yesterday denied allegations by human rights organizations that the Kingdom was oppressing people of other faiths and preventing them from practicing their religious rituals.
These allegations are totally untrue. The reality is quite the contrary. There are thousands of non-Muslims with different religious faiths in the Kingdom. We dont interfere in their personal faiths, Prince Ahmad told reporters after attending a function in Riyadh.
However, the minister said the Kingdom would not allow the public practice of non-Islamic rituals. Everybody is aware of this when they come to the Kingdom. We dont interfere in the affairs of other countries and we dont allow anybody to do anything contrary to Islam. People are free to practice their religious faiths and beliefs at home and in private, he added.
Asked what precautions the Kingdom had taken to counter any US efforts to change regimes in Arab countries, the prince said: We have not received any information concerning such efforts. This is just gossip and we dont think it has any basis. We depend first on God and ourselves and we have our own system of government. We look forward to a bright future, Al-Madinah daily quoted him as saying.
Prince Ahmad dismissed suggestions that the Kingdom was curtailing the role of religion in state affairs as a result of foreign pressure. Everybody is religious in our country, and we give priority to religion before worldly things. Our Kingdom is based on Shariah law.
Prince Ahmad estimated the number of Saudis arrested for ties with Al-Qaeda at a little over 200. Some of them have been sentenced in accordance with Shariah law; many others were released. Some are still waiting for a judgment, he said.
The interior minister has the right to reduce the jail sentences of these prisoners by a quarter for good conduct. Those who memorize the Holy Quran will also receive similar cuts in sentences from higher authorities, he added.
Prince Ahmad said the Kingdom did not face any security threat following the US-led war against neighboring Iraq. Nobody is breaking any rules. Everyone stands by the Kingdoms leadership. Things are normal. We dont have any information that confirms participation of Saudis in the war, he said.
Prince Ahmad said he had no information about the arrest of a German in the Kingdom in connection with Al-Qaeda. If a foreigner is detained there would have to be a genuine reason, he said.
He said efforts are under way to expand the role of women in security agencies. There are women officers now working for security, prisons and the passport department, and we will expand their role in line with requirements. Often women are better at dealing with women, he added.
Saudis sentence man to death for insulting religion
Middle East Newsline (03.02.2003)/HRWF Int. (05.02.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Saudi Arabia is said to have sentenced a Yemeni national to death for insulting the religion of his roommate.
A Saudi court in Jedda sentenced the Yemeni national to death on Jan. 7. They said the Yemeni, identified as Hail Al Masri was originally sentenced to two years imprisonment and 600 lashes. But a higher court headed by Ali Al Zahrani rejected the sentence and ruled that Al Masri should be beheaded.
Saudi newspapers said Al Masri tried to jump from the third floor where the courtroom was located after the death sentence was read. Al Masri was seriously injured in the fall and taken to a local hospital.
The Washington-based Saudi Institute said Saudi Arabia has not formally announced the death sentence. The opposition group said a Saudi reporter who covered the court proceedings refused to speak with the institute in fear of government reprisal.
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