{"id":3084,"date":"2007-08-07T20:57:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-07T20:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/08\/man-arrested-by-the-religious.html"},"modified":"2007-08-07T20:57:00","modified_gmt":"2007-08-07T20:57:00","slug":"man-arrested-by-the-religious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/08\/man-arrested-by-the-religious.html","title":{"rendered":"Man arrested by the religious police for helping his neighbor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What kind of a religion <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnsnews.com\/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=\/ForeignBureaus\/archive\/200708\/INT20070807b.html\">doesn&#8217;t allow<\/a> kindness and compassion?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Members of Saudi Arabia&#8217;s controversial religious police have arrested a Nigerian man who converted to Islam for being alone with a woman he was not married to or related to. It happened after the African man helped the sick woman by taking her to hospital.<br \/>\nThe incident, reported in Saudi media, comes at a time when the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice is under unprecedented scrutiny over abuses committed while enforcing the kingdom&#8217;s strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam.<br \/>\nArab News reported that Ibrahim Mohammed Lawal, a Nigerian student of Islam in Riyadh, learned that his 63-year-old neighbor was in need of medical attention and took her to hospital.<br \/>\nWhile checking on her condition several days later, he was arrested by members of the plain-clothed vice squad, known in Arabic as the muttawa or muttaween.<br \/>\nThe reports said the man, who had been in custody for &#8220;50 days and counting,&#8221; said all he wanted to do was to return to his home country.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The money may be good but you lose so much of your freedom by going to a repressive country like this.  One in which the police have an unhealthy amount of power and discretion over what is considered a violation.  They can pretty much write the rules as to what constitutes a vice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What kind of a religion doesn&#8217;t allow kindness and compassion? Members of Saudi Arabia&#8217;s controversial religious police have arrested a Nigerian man who converted to Islam for being alone with a woman he was not married to or related to. It happened after the African man helped the sick woman by taking her to hospital.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":307,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,11,61],"class_list":["post-3084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-under-the-sun","tag-islam","tag-religion","tag-saudis"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Man arrested by the religious police for helping his neighbor - Reformed Chicks Blabbing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/08\/man-arrested-by-the-religious.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Man arrested by the religious police for helping his neighbor - Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What kind of a religion doesn&#8217;t allow kindness and compassion? Members of Saudi Arabia&#8217;s controversial religious police have arrested a Nigerian man who converted to Islam for being alone with a woman he was not married to or related to. It happened after the African man helped the sick woman by taking her to hospital.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/08\/man-arrested-by-the-religious.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-08-07T20:57:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"michele\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Man arrested by the religious police for helping his neighbor - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/08\/man-arrested-by-the-religious.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Man arrested by the religious police for helping his neighbor - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","og_description":"What kind of a religion doesn&#8217;t allow kindness and compassion? Members of Saudi Arabia&#8217;s controversial religious police have arrested a Nigerian man who converted to Islam for being alone with a woman he was not married to or related to. It happened after the African man helped the sick woman by taking her to hospital.&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/08\/man-arrested-by-the-religious.html","og_site_name":"Reformed Chicks Blabbing","article_published_time":"2007-08-07T20:57:00+00:00","author":"michele","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/08\/man-arrested-by-the-religious.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/08\/man-arrested-by-the-religious.html","name":"Man arrested by the religious police for helping his neighbor - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-08-07T20:57:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-08-07T20:57:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/8de1e1f06613d0c6f3bd8a276ac94ab0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/08\/man-arrested-by-the-religious.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/08\/man-arrested-by-the-religious.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2007\/08\/man-arrested-by-the-religious.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Man arrested by the religious police for helping his neighbor"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/","name":"Reformed Chicks Blabbing","description":"Politics and current events from a Reformed perspective, by Michele McGinty","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/8de1e1f06613d0c6f3bd8a276ac94ab0","name":"michele","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"michele"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/author\/michele"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3084\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}