[ad_1]
Jakarta, CNN Indonesia –
Authority Saudi Arabia Recently arrested a famous scholar and reader of the Quran, Sheikh Abdullah Basfar last August.
Sheikh Basfar is currently being held in the Detention Center of Conscience (PoC). The detainees did not provide further details on the motives and how Basfar was arrested.
“We confirm the detention of Sheikh Dr. Abdullah Basfar since August 2020,” wrote the prisoner’s of conscience’s Twitter account, @ m3takl_en.
Reported Middle East MonitorBasfar is a professor in the Department of Sharia and Islamic Studies at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah. He is also the former secretary general of the World Book and Sunnah Organization.
The reports on the arrest of Basfar coincide with the reports on the arrest of Sheikh Saud Al-Funaisan, who was arrested in March.
Al-Funaisan is a university professor and former dean of the Faculty of Sharia at Al-Imam University in Riyadh.
Some have hailed the arrests as part of a crackdown on extremism in the kingdom. Those efforts are in line with Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman’s plans to erase religious identity in Saudi Arabia.
But a large number of Saudis expressed anger at the arrest. Quoting a Saudi citizen on Twitter, the online newspaper, Rai Al Youm, revealed that “the elite we need is in prison.”
“Our clerics are arbitrarily detained while unimportant people enjoy freedom and spread corruption in this country. This is an open campaign to get rid of Islam and spread crime in Haramin land,” another Saudi citizen tweeted.
Since 2017, when the crown prince took power, he has cracked down on various clergymen, journalists, academics and cyber activists for their critical views on the way he governs and plans to secularize his country.
(years / evn)
[Gambas:Video CNN]
[ad_2]
