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On July 18, authorities arrested Indian hospital worker Prahbu Isaac, who is considered to be a key leader among house churches in Jeddah. Isaac's home also was raided. Personal effects, including his computer, were confiscated. Saudi Arabia prohibits all public expression of religion apart from Muslims who follow the strict Wahabi interpretation within the Hanbali school of Islam, expounded by 18th century Islamic scholar Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. Saudi officials have publicly stated that non-Muslims may worship in private but many leaders of house groups have been arrested and deported, human rights groups say.

The arrests appear to be part of a campaign to eliminate house churches in Jeddah, according to spokesperson (who asked not to be identified) for the United Churches of Saudi Arabia, an underground network. The group is a network of about 250 house churches consisting almost entirely of expatriate Protestants and Catholics. The spokesperson is an American citizen who became involved in the expatriate churches during two years of employment in Saudi Arabia and now, from the United States, maintains regular contact with colleagues there.

Over the past three years Saudi authorities have arrested house church leaders in Riyadh, the capital, but have left Jeddah alone until now, the United Churches of Saudi Arabia said. According to Isaac's wife, the Indian leader was tortured into revealing at least six names of underground leaders in Jeddah. Menghis, the Ethiopian worker, was on that list.

"It's only a reasonable deduction to say another of the six is next," the United Churches spokesperson said. "It is also known that Prabhu's computer contained the list of a huge majority of the church leaders and churches that are in Jeddah and probably the rest of the country."

ICC said that Isaac remains under arrest in the Farifia Prison in Jeddah. His wife has made an international appeal for help, but so far no government has been willing to intervene, the group said.

ICC has accused the U.S. government of taking a relatively light stance on alleged infractions of religious freedom in Saudi Arabia due to the country's economic and political importance as an ally in the volatile Middle East.

In any case, Saudi officials are not open to listening to the concerns of religious liberty advocates, according to Firuz Kazemzadeh. He traveled to the country earlier this year with a five-member team from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent panel established by the U.S. Congress to make policy recommendations. "I think that they are trying their best to put a good face on it, by telling us that people can practice their religion at home," he said. "But at the same time they have a law that prohibits the presence of any (foreign) clergyman on Saudi Arabian soil."

Two members of the USCIRF delegation, Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reformed Judaism in Washington, D.C, and Catholic Archbishop of Washington Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, came back from Saudi Arabia with a more optimistic view of Saudi officials willingness to discuss religious liberty.

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July (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45