REUTERS: RIYADH - Saudi police have arrested at least 11 Shi'ites in eastern Saudi Arabia after a firebrand preacher attacked the Sunni authorities over recent sectarian clashes, police and Shi'ite sources said on Sunday.
Tewfik al-Saif, an intellectual from the Eastern Province, said a total of 14 Shi'ites were arrested in Awwamiyya during several days of sit-ins in protest against police raids in search of preacher Nimr al-Nimr, who has gone missing.
Shi'ite website Rasid.com also reported the arrests.
Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki confirmed that 11 men were detained on Saturday on suspicion of "disturbing public order" and an act of vandalism that caused an electricity black-out in the Shi'ite town of Awwamiyya.
He said police wanted Nimr for questioning but did not know for what reason.
Saif and a member of Nimr's family said that in a sermon in Awwamiyya this month Nimr had suggested Shi'ites could one day seek to secede from Saudi Arabia, a country that sees itself as the bastion of mainstream Sunni Islam.
Most Saudi Shi'ites live in the eastern, oil-producing part of the country. They are thought to form 10 to 15 percent of the population of 17 million Saudis, and often complain of second-class status in the kingdom. >>> © Thomson Reuters 2009 | Sunday, March 22, 2009
