“Saudi Arabia has jailed a hard-line cleric who once called for demolishing the Grand Mosque in Mecca and rebuilding it to prevent mixing between the sexes at Islam’s holiest site, local media reports say. The news website Aleqt.com said Yousuf Ahmad was sentenced to five years in prison for “disobedience” to the ultraconservative kingdom’s rulers and “incitement” against them. The kingdom arrested Ahmad last July after he called for the release of political prisoners, media reports said. Some reports said he was arrested after posting a YouTube video in which he criticized King Abdullah and top Saudi officials for the practice of detention without trial. Authorities also slapped a five-year travel ban on Ahmad and fined him the equivalent of thousands of dollars. Ahmed has appealed the ruling, according to the Agence France-Presse news agency. The New York-based rights watchdog Human Rights Watch says thousands of people receive unfair trials or face arbitrary detention in Saudi Arabia………….”
He was an extremist who wanted to end co-ed hajj, separate men from women in Mecca, but certainly that is not why he was arrested. His proposal for splitting the hajj was done two or three years ago. He is in prison because he criticized the Saudi theocracy and the alliance of the Princes and the muftis.
He had to be truly on the extreme to be more extremist than the official Saudi palace Mufti Shaikh Al Al Al Shaikh who a couple of weeks ago called for the demolition of all churches (and synagogues if any) in the Persian Gulf region. He also sentences sorcerers, magicians, and witches and anyone who deals with them to execution by beheading. He also sentences anyone who fornicates with the jinn to stoning (imagine the astronaut who used to fool around with Barbara Eden in the old days would be stoned to death).
Extremism in the Kingdom of Segregation is relative, and this shaikh Yousuf Ahmad is entitled to express his opinion as much as the Mufti is entitled to express the opinions of the princes in their palaces.
Cheers
mhg
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