Saudi Arabia (MNN)–Little is known about the fate of four African Christians arrested in a Saudi Arabian police raid a month ago. Officers raided a private worship gathering on June 9th in Jeddah.
Voice of the Martyrs Canada’sGreg Musselman : “We don’t even know if there were people from outside of the Christian community that were there, but somebody, somewhere, reported them and then, as a result of that, they were arrested.”
Officials took the four they believed to be leading the group into custody. At last notice, Mekbeb Telahun and Masai Wendewesen from Ethiopia and Fekre Gebremedhin and Dawit Uqbay from Eritrea were being held in the Jeddah Terhil (Deportation) Center.
While it is a common practice to deport Christians arrested in Saudi Arabia, what happens between the arrests and actual deportation can be troubling.
As to the ‘why’ of the diversity in the gathering of 100, Musselman explains, “These people that have come to find work, that are Christians, have a heart to evangelize in a very low-key way, because that’s really the only way that evangelism takes place in a country like Saudi Arabia.”
Musselman says the Saudi government insist that Christians are free to worship within their own homes. However, all public worship, other than Islamic, is strictly prohibited.
As evidenced by these arrests, even private worship can be a problem for the religious police. Musselman says, “I think we need to be praying that our brothers and sisters in Christ that are trying to the bring the Gospel to the Saudi people, that they would continue to be strong and not fearful.”
He adds that as hard as it is on Christians, it often goes worse for others. “[Pray] also for the Christians that have come out of Islam. Many of them are having to be very, very low-key.”
