Religious Freedom
Religious freedom is an important issue for the center. It is forbidden to practice any other religion in The Kingdom other than Wahhabism, which is the state-sanctioned interpretation of Islam. Representative of an estimated one percent of Muslims in Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism is considered by most to be and extremist sect of Islam that openly sponsors terrorism and the persecution of other religions. While modest efforts have been made by the Saudi government to modernize their strict adherence to Wahhabism and to try to separate themselves from the negative aspects of this brand of Islam(2008 Interfaith Conference. Madrid, Spain), CDHR believes that “unless the international community takes concrete measures to discourage the Saudi institutions from promoting religious hatred in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world, the consequences could be catastrophic.”
Read more about this topic: Center For Democracy And Human Rights In Saudi Arabia
Famous quotes containing the words religious and/or freedom:
“Yet the New Testament treats of man and man’s so-called spiritual affairs too exclusively, and is too constantly moral and personal, to alone content me, who am not interested solely in man’s religious or moral nature, or in man even.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)