Saudi Arabia ‘arrests’ Makkah imam over talk on ‘evil-doers’

Sheikh Saleh Al-Talib, imam and preacher of the Grand Mosque in Makkah, was arrested yesterday according to the social media advocacy group Prisoners of Conscience.

🔴 We confirm the arrest of the Imam of Haram Sheikh Dr. Saleh al Taleb, and it is said that the reason for the arrest is a speech about the doing evil and the duty in Islam to deny that in public! pic.twitter.com/8jq70ljDGg

— Prisoners of Conscience (@m3takl_en) August 19, 2018

Activists said Al-Talib’s last lecture on “evil-doing” was the reason for his detention.

The cleric’s last couple of tweets were on the topic of Hajj, with Al-Khaleej Online questioning whether he made the social media posts himself.

https://twitter.com/Salih_Altalib/status/1031457286940749825

Since 2017, Mohammad Bin Salman has launched a large-scale arrest campaign involving many human rights activists, journalists, people in business and moderate clerics.

The arrests reached Islamists and liberals alike, and the common denominator between them seems to be the fact that they are not entirely subordinate to the ruling power in the Kingdom.

Last week, the prominent Islamic scholar Sheikh Suleiman Dweesh died under torture in a Saudi Arabian jail. He was arrested in April 2016 after making critical comments about Bin Salman.

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