Saudi police beat us up, say British Shia pilgrims

A group of British and American Muslims on pilgrimage to Mecca say they were illegally detained and brutally beaten by Saudi religious police.

The men, who suffered physical mistreatment as well as verbal abuse during their incarceration, claim they were arrested because they are Shia and Westerners. The Foreign Office is expected to raise the matter with the Saudi government although the authorities in the country say they have already started an investigation.

The eight men were among a group of 35 British and American nationals on a two-week visit to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina when they were arrested. They say the religious police, a powerful force in the Sunni kingdom, waded in after an argument developed between the group and a Sunni worshipper at a shrine. The men, now back in this country, claim the police repeatedly struck them with chair legs, sticks and heavy hand-held radios.

The men were moved between several police stations but were freed after 12 hours, after one of them called his family in Britain using a mobile telephone he had hidden in his clothes, leading to intervention by British and US diplomats.

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"They were calling us infidels. When we said we were British and American citizens and wanted to speak to our embassies the beating got even worse.

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We were denied the most basic human rights. We were given no water or food or medical treatment. Our own medicine, for serious conditions like asthma, was denied to us. Our mobiles were taken away. Luckily they missed one and that's what saved us. It was disgraceful conduct and we demand an apology from the Saudi government."

Apology from the Saudi government???? For the conduct of the Commission for the Promotion of Vice and the Prevention of Virtue???? I am afraid they will have to wait until they are blue in the face! Heck the Saudi government can't even make them "behave"!

The Saudi Interior Ministry had issued a statement reminding the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or Muttawa, of the limits of its powers. ANd what did they do? They went and beat up more people ...