Denied Dignity

A pilgrimage of Saudi Shia to Medina in February 2009 led to clashes over five days with Saudi security forces, including the hardline Sunni religious police, and scores of arrests. Shia living in the Eastern Province then demonstrated in solidarity with their detained coreligionists, leading to further arrests of protestors, some of whom were held for months without charge. The Medina events stoked the sharpest sectarian tensions that the kingdom has experienced in years. Saudi Shia experience systematic discrimination in public eduction, in the justice system, and especially in their religious freedom. They face exclusion in government employment, too. Shia rarely receive permission to build mosques and, unlike their Sunni fellow citizens, do not receive government funds to build mosques. Since 2008 the authorities have arrested and threatened the owners of Shia private communal prayer halls in Khobar to extract pledges to close them. Since 2001 the authorities in Ahsa' have imposed extrajudicial prison sentences on leaders of communal prayers and persons selling articles used in Shia religious ceremonies such as 'Ashura' and Qarqi'un, which remain prohibited in Saudi Arabia. Shia are not allowed to teach religion in state schools, and Shia pupils are forced to learn from Sunni teachers who teach them they are unbelievers. Shia cannot become judges in Saudi courts and face discrimination in access to justice. There are no Shia in high positions within the armed services, diplomatic corps, or government. King Abdullah has championed religious tolerance at home through the 2003 National Dialogues and the 2008 Mekka interfaith meeting, and called for respect between religions in Madrid and New York in 2008. He should go beyond a call for tolerance and initiate institutional reform to address systematic discrimination against the Shia -- back cover.