Saudi "terror funders" are reform activists: lawyer

Reuters

Yahoo! Inc. Sun Feb 4, 4:38 AM ET

RIYADH - Ten men arrested in Saudi Arabia on suspicion of funding terrorism include known political activists detained in the past over calls for reform in the absolute monarchy, a lawyer said on Sunday. ADVERTISEMENT

The Interior Ministry said on Saturday it had arrested 10 people, including a foreign resident, for collecting donations and giving them to "suspicious elements." It said the arrests were part of police operations against "funding terrorism."

Bassem Alem, a lawyer representing some of the men, said they were reformers who had recently been warned by the Interior Ministry, overseen by hawkish Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz, to halt their meetings and petitions.

"They are pure reformists par excellence. Nothing about them is remotely linked with terrorism," he told Reuters, adding that police later seized books and computer files from their homes.

"They are always being given warnings not to write petitions or to meet. There is a heightened sensitivity over petitions and meetings, I don't know why."

He named some of the men as Sulaiman Rushoudi, Essam Basrawy, Abdel-Rahman al-Shimary, Abdelaziz al-Khuraijy and Mousa al-Qarny.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said he could not confirm the men's names or backgrounds.

A court jailed three reformers in 2005 for petitioning for a constitutional monarchy but King Abdullah pardoned them after he came to power the same year in what analysts said was a sign of changing trends within the ruling family.

King Abdullah is a popular figure for his promise of cautious reforms in Saudi Arabia, a monarchy with no elected parliament and little tolerance for political opposition.

Since then there have been no petitions, but little progress on political reform in a country where over 60 percent of the Saudi population of 17 million is under 21.

Political tension in Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and Iraq, as well as an anti-government campaign launched in 2003 by Islamist militants, have heightened security tension in Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally and the world's top oil producer.

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