Opposes Providing Land For New Churches
On December 14, 2005, Al-Tabtabaie slammed the government for providing Christians with two plots of land to build churches, arguing that "the recent measure of allowing non-Muslims to build places of worship in Kuwait is illegal under Islamic law."
Al-Tabtabaie told the AFP that non-Muslims must be allowed to practice their religious rituals but without the need to establish places of worship. He said Kuwait at present has about 20 churches and the number of Kuwaiti Christians is less than 100, "which means there is a church for every five Kuwaiti Christians."
Church sources told AFP that the Gulf Arab state has eight churches, four of which have their own permanent buildings and the rest are in rented homes. According to the sources, there are between 150 and 200 Kuwaiti Christians and up to 350,000 foreign Christians mostly from India, the Philippines, Egypt, Lebanon and the West.The government has recently allotted Christians two large pieces of state land to build churches, a measure that was welcomed by the head of parliament's human rights committee, MP Ali al-Rashed.
Kuwait was the first Gulf Arab state to establish direct links withVatican City and Emmanuel Benjamen al-Ghareeb became the first Kuwaiti pastor of the Anglican church in 1999.Other Gulf states like Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates have churches, while Qatar announced in October that it will donate land to build the gas-rich emirate's first church.Churches are banned in Saudi Arabia.
Read more about this topic: Waleed Al-Tabtabaie
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