Saudi Arabia arrests Shiite activist in Eastern Province
Police exchanged fire with the two men, wounding them in the leg before they were captured
Riyadh: Saudi police have arrested a Shiite activist wanted on security-related charges after a gunfight in the kingdom’s Eastern province, scene to sporadic protests since early 2011, the interior ministry said.
Abdullah Al Asreeh, one of 23 Shiites on a wanted list for allegedly fomenting trouble in the Eastern Region, was arrested along with an unarmed man who faces charges of selling drugs and alcohol, the ministry said late Monday. Police exchanged fire with the two men in the village of Awamiya, wounding them in the leg before they were captured, interior ministry spokesman General Mansour Al Turki said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.
Saudi Arabia’s estimated two million Shiites, who frequently complain of marginalisation in the kingdom, live mostly in the east where the vast majority of the Opec kingpin’s huge oil reserves lie.
They first took to the streets in protest in February 2011, after an outbreak of violence between Shiite pilgrims and religious police in the holy city of Madinah.
The protests escalated after the kingdom’s intervention in Bahrain to put down the protests there.
