By Toby Matthiesen, The Mideast Channel @ ForeignPolicy.com, July 10, 2012
The arrest of the Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr in his hometown of Awwamiyya in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province on Sunday afternoon, July 8, has been long in the making. In some ways many observers had been wondering why he had not been arrested earlier, since he had become the spiritual leader of the protest movement in Eastern Saudi Arabia and his outspoken views put him clearly at odds with the Saudi ruling family. But while Nimr al-Nimr repeatedly called upon the local youth to be ready to die as martyrs, he urged them not to "return bullets with bullets" but use peaceful means instead. He acknowledged that Shiites would suffer much more if they were to attack the overwhelming firepower of the Saudi regime, and therefore called for peaceful demonstrations and civil disobedience.
In cables released by Wikileaks, U.S. diplomats tried to come to grips with Nimr's role from marginal cleric to a rallying figure for young Shiites, meeting personally with him on one occasion. The diplomatic reporter wrote [....]
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Angry Throngs at a Funeral in Saudi Arabia
By Kareem Fahim, New York Times, July 10/11, 2012
CAIRO — Thousands of people attended a funeral in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for a man killed during protests in a restive region of the country’s Eastern Province, a show of popular anger that came amid fears of a renewed crackdown on dissent.
Videos posted on social networking sites on Tuesday night showed an avenue filled with rows of chanting mourners. Other videos showed youths throwing incendiary devices at what appeared to be a police car, and rocks at a government building.
Activists said the man, Muhammed el-Filfil, had been protesting the shooting and arrest on Sunday by government security forces of a prominent Shiite cleric in the Qatif region. Mr. Filfil was one of at least two people killed when security forces fired live ammunition at the protesters in the village of Awamiya, the activists said. A government official denied that any such clash had occurred [....]