http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/20111031226131935.html
Saudi police arrest Canadian imam at Hajj
Witnesses say police beat prominent Shia Muslim leader from Edmonton who
travelled to the kingdom for annual pilgrimage.
Last Modified: 31 Oct 2011 09:41
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Al-Atar, from Edmonton, Canada, was arrested in Saudi Arabia on unclear
charges [Photo courtesy usamaalatar.net]
A renowned Canadian imam who travelled to Saudi Arabia to perform the annual
Muslim Hajj pilgrimage has been arrested in Medina after allegedly being
beaten, witnesses say.
The Canadian government confirmed the arrest on Sunday and a spokesman with the
foreign affairs department said its embassy in Riyadh was prepared to provide
diplomatic assistance. The Canadian foreign office gave no further information,
citing privacy concerns.
According to news reports, Usama al-Atar was with an international group that
travelled to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj and was leading a prayer recitation at a
cemetery on Sunday when witnesses said he was confronted by officers from the
country's religious police.
CTV reported that officers beat him without provocation, chasing and
suffocating him in front of more than 200 witnesses. The officers then
reportedly took him into custody without explanation.
Michael Hayward, a British citizen, described the assault to CTV: "He was
bleeding quite a lot from the beating. They put his head to an air conditioning
unit and sat on him until he was blue in the face."
Hayward told the Toronto Star that police “virtually strangled” al-Atar even
though the imam did not put up a fight.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that al-Atar was accused of
attacking Saudi religious police and remains in police custody. Saudi police
have not confirmed the charges or his detention, the CBC reported.
Defiant speech
Al-Atar, who studies cancer research at the University of Alberta, is an
outspoken Shia Muslim leader and founder of Active Muslim Youth of British
Columbia, a not-for-profit organisation that teaches youth about Islam.
The imam's website states that al-Atar is originally from the Iraqi city of
Karbala. It says he began to recite the Quran professionally at age 14 and by
19 was reading before large audiences. Reports said that al-Atar's work on
diabetes and cancer had been widely published.
The London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission was quoted by the Toronto Star
as saying that al-Atar was “manhandled” and the group demanded Saudi
authorities release him immediately.
In March, al-Atar gave a speech in protest against the violence in Bahrain in
which he said: "When my children ask me about what I did when I saw people
getting killed and oppressed, I do not want to tell them that I stood silently".
A Saudi-led force of Gulf Co-operation Council troops was deployed to Bahrain's
capital Manama to crack down on the mostly Shia-led anti-government protests.
Al-Atar has a pregnant wife and a three-year-old child in Canada, according to
reports.
The Saudi religious police referred to in reports are known as the Mutawa, a
force charged with maintaining the predominantly Sunni Muslim nation's system
of Islamic law.
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