Persecution in Saudi Arabia highlighted at interfaith conference

Saudi Arabia has been heavily criticised for its persecution of Christians, at a major Saudi-organised interfaith meeting in Vienna, writes Christa Pongratz-Lippitt.

A Christian human rights campaigner, Elmar Kuhn, accused the Saudis of persecuting Christians in their home country and highlighted the fact that they have no rights of public worship. The conference was organised by the King Abdullah International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID) on 18 and 19 November on the theme of “The Image of the Other”. The criticism is a major embarrassment for a monarchy that forbids all expressions of Christianity in Saudi Arabia, despite being allowed to finance mosques across the world.

Mr Kuhn, general secretary of the Austrian branch of Christian Solidarity International, told his hosts it was “a great pity” and “certainly a deadly earnest matter” that KAICIID should have applied itself to interreligious dialogue without any progress made in this field in Saudi Arabia itself. Five hundred experts and religious leaders working in education and religion from more than 90 countries took part in the two-day conference.

Before he left for Vienna to attend the conference, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran told Vatican Radio that it was important to use this channel to build bridges between Christianity and Islam, adding, “I’m a realist. The baby has begun to walk and must be supported.” The Saudi centre was inaugurated in Vienna on 26 November 2012 with the Holy See as a “founding observer”.

At a press conference a week earlier, a Christian journalist questioned the centre’s general secretary, Faisal A. Bin Muammar, about why more than three million Christians in Saudi Arabia, mainly Catholic guest workers from the Philippines, did not have a right to their own places of worship. Mr Bin Muammar replied curtly: “I am not permitted to interfere in my country’s domestic affairs. My job is to get people together round a dialogue table in Vienna.” When he was pressed on why Christians were not even allowed to pray in public and were, moreover, punished for doing so, he said, “Any kind of persecution is ghastly. No religion will advocate that.”

KAICIID’s education programme aims to break down barriers between Muslims, Christians, Jews and members of other religions. One of the group sessions at the conference was chaired by the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Fr Miguel Ayuso, who is also the Holy See’s representative on the KAICIID board of directors. “In that forum there was a fruitful sharing” of ideas and experiences, Fr Ayuso told Vatican Radio. “What remains to be seen is whether we can translate our work here into practical results for the many people who ... are not able to enjoy the basic human right of religious liberty … The success  [in my view] of KAICIID will be measured in the ability of the centre to provide avenues of redress for those who suffer in this way.”