The tension was still high Tuesday near the Prophet Mohammed's mosque in the Muslim pilgrimage city of Medina, which was a theatre of clashes between armed forces and Saudi Shiites on Monday night, according to news websites.
"The troublemakers are being questioned. Anyone who violates the law will be judged," Emir Majed ben Abdel Aziz, the regional governor of Medina, told the daily Medina which is the only local newspaper to have referred Tuesday to the clashes that broke out Friday evening at the entrance of the Baqi Al-Gharqad cemetery located at the southeast corner of the Prophet’s Mosque.
According to several website, including the main pro-Shiite "Rased”, clashes broke out between elements of the Commission of the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" (religious police) and the Shiite pilgrims from the Eastern Province, particularly Al-Qatif and Ihsa, who came to spend the winter school holidays in Medina and visit the Prophet’s tomb.
"Rased, citing protesters, said that" the Shiite pilgrims have responded to the religious police’s wrongdoings. The website has aired a videotape showing what it called "the spark which ignited the fire.”
One sequence showed a young man at the top of a building adjacent to the Baqi Al-Gharqad cemetery, currently filming several Shiite women who were asking him to stop recording. According to "Rased", the man behind the camera is a member of the religious police.
The "Alweeam" website, close to authorities, wrote Sunday that "nearly 7000 citizens of the Shiite community had expressed their anger, shouted anti-government slogans and denounced "discrimination" which, according to them, affects their community.
The demonstrators also bribed members of the Commission who denied them access to the cemetery, a usual preventive measure, because of the rites of members of this community."
According to the website, the crowd surrounded the Commission’s headquarters, shouting slogans hostile to it and to the Saudi leaders and chanting slogans glorifying the Shiite Imams outside the kingdom".
"The security forces then intervened to restore order and prevent the situation from escalating," according to "Alweeam” and several anti-Shiite websites.
According to these websites, sporadic fighting resumed Monday night and continued Tuesday at dawn, injuring several people in both camps. The daily Al-Madina stated however that "the renewed clashes have been controlled by the security forces."
The Shiite pilgrims - whose number, according to various sources, is estimated between 2000 and 7000 – came from the Eastern Province, particularly from Qatif and Al-Ihsa, during the winter school holidays to commemorate the death of Mohammed and his grandson, the second of the line of imams revered in Shiite Islam who is buried in Al-Baqi cemetery adjacent to the prophet's mosque.
The unprecedented Shiite gathering in Medina occurred more than a week after the announcement of radical institutional changes in the kingdom.
Monday clashes left six injured, one seriously hit in the chest. The website did not specify whether the wounded were among the demonstrators who attacked shops and smashed windows of cars, reported "Alweeam".
“Two policemen were wounded, while four injured protesters were admitted to hospital," the website added.
Police fired live bullets on the crowd, injuring dozens of Shiite pilgrims, several of them seriously, reported the pro-Shiite Rasid website, adding that it was “the religious police who provoked the clashes” and that “security forces intervened to quell the Shiite pilgrims, including hundreds of women and children.”
“The clashes then spread out to the predominantly Shiite district of Al-Aziaat and the extremists of the Commission attacked shops and cars."
But, Fahd Al-Khidr, the President of the Commission in the Medina region, was quoted by Al-Madina saying that he "categorically denied that his men were involved in skirmishes “whether inside or outside the cemetery.”
These clashes were accompanied by violent diatribes between Saudi writers and journalists of Sunni and Shiite faiths, via the press and websites.
This war of words heightened on Monday. Several Sunni journalists and writers Sunnis vehemently denounced "acts of violence perpetrated by Shiites”. Some of them even blamed the unrest on Iran.
Al-Jamil Dhiab, A journalist of Al-Hayat, even urged the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to "recall their ambassadors from Tehran and expel Iranian ambassadors from their capitals."
Sheikh Hassan Al-Saffar, the Saudi Shiite leader, called on King Abdullah to "put an end to degrading acts of religious body ( the Commission) against the Shiite pilgrims," according to Rasid website which also referred to" a wave of anger in the predominantly Shiite areas, including Al-Qatif and Ihsa, and calls for street demonstrations, which are strictly forbidden in the kingdom.
Saudi Shiites represent, according to various estimates, between 10% and 20% of the kingdom’s population estimated at more than 18 million. They are concentrated especially in the East Province, a region rich in oil bordering Kuwait and southern Iraq.
Shiites say they suffer discrimination, particularly being banned from holding key positions in military, diplomacy and security and from exercising their religious rites and cultural activities.
The Saudi government is dominated by Sunnis inspired by Wahhabism, a strict doctrine of Sunni Islam.
The radical changes made on February 13 by King Abdullah have been marked by the restructuring of the "Supreme Ulemma Council, the highest religious body in the country.
For the first time the Council was expanded to three other doctrines of Sunni Islam (Maliki, Hanafi, Chafii), whereas previously, this body was composed entirely of members of the Hanbali school, known for its firmness. However, the Shiite community is not represented.
Saudi analysts, were quoted Sunday by the Kuwaiti daily "Al-Qabas" as saying they were expecting “Shiite personalities to join the Supreme Ulemma Council.”
www.saudiwave.com
Translated by Dr. Saad Guerraoui, Senior Editor at Middle East Online
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