THE GUARDIAN: Arab human rights activists have condemned a Saudi religious edict calling for the execution of two writers for apostasy - giving a rare glimpse of tensions over Islam inside the conservative kingdom.
The ruling by Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Barrak was described as "intellectual terrorism" carried out by "clerics of darkness" in a statement signed by 100 rights groups and intellectuals from across the region and obtained by Reuters news agency.
Last month Sheikh al-Barrak issued a fatwa against two Saudi writers he denounced as "infidels". Writing in al-Riyadh newspaper, Yousef Aba Al-Khail and Abdullah bin Bejad had questioned the Sunni Muslim view - standard in Saudi Arabia - that adherents of other faiths should be considered unbelievers.
"Anyone who claims this has refuted Islam and should be tried so that he can take it back. If not, he should be killed as an apostate from the religion of Islam," Sheikh al-Barrak said. "It is disgraceful that articles containing this kind of apostasy should be published in ... the land of the two holy shrines [in Mecca and Medina]."
Sheikh al-Barrak is seen by Islamists as Saudi Arabia's leading religious authority independent of the establishment Wahhabi school. His call won support from like-minded clerics who asked God to support him in the face of a "wicked attack" by liberals with "polluted beliefs".
Fatwas by radical Muslim clerics led to the assassination in 1992 of the Egyptian writer Farag Foda and to an attempt in 1994 in Cairo to murder the Egyptian Nobel prizewinner Naguib Mahfouz.
Last month Saudi Arabia's Shura council threw out a proposal for a law promoting respect for other religions and religious symbols, apparently for fear it might lead to the building of churches. That was seen as a defeat for liberals and reformists in the struggle against religious hardliners. Arab Rights Groups Condemn Saudi Death Fatwa on Writers >>> By Ian Black, Middle East editor | April 2, 2008
Mark Alexander
