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Arabia
Saudi authorities arrest female pilgrim for raising Palestinian flag
2024-02-24
[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] Saudi security authorities arrested a female pilgrim from inside the Grand Mosque in Mecca for raising the Paleostinian flag.

The arrest of the woman from the Mataf (circumambulation) area in the Grand Mosque has been met with strong criticism from activists on social media.

Some considered the arrest as an act of suppressing any interaction or reminder of the Paleostinian cause by the Saudi authorities.

The Saudi authorities’ activities against the Paleostinian cause have notably increased during the genocidal massacres committed by the Zionist killing machine against the Paleostinian people in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
It’s worth noting that the propaganda spread by Saudi activists associated with the royal palace exhibits a hostile attitude towards the Paleostinian people and resistance.
Even without an Abraham Accords agreement, the Saudis have a cozy relationship with the Juices — very helpful against threats from the patrons of the Houthis.
The Saudi authorities have previously arrested several pilgrims for advocating for Paleostine in Mecca.
They have? When was this?
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Arabia
Imam prays for ‘Jews’ annihilation’ in sermon at Mecca Grand Mosque
2022-08-03
[IsraelTimes] Imam Saleh Bin al-Humayd prayed for God to "bring annihilation upon the plundering and occupying Jews" and to protect the Moslems from their evil during a Friday sermon at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute.

The sermon came less than two weeks after Israeli journalist Gil Tamari illegally entered the site where non-Moslems are banned.
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Arabia
Magic Kingdom's 'chop-chop square' begins third shift production
2022-03-12
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia on Saturday executed 81 people convicted of crimes ranging from killings to belonging to militant groups, the largest known mass execution carried out in the kingdom in its modern history.

The number of executed surpassed even the toll of a January 1980 mass execution for the 63 militants convicted of seizing the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979, the worst-ever militant attack to target the kingdom and Islam’s holiest site.

It wasn’t clear why the kingdom choose Saturday for the executions, though they came as much of the world’s attention remained focused on Russia’s war on Ukraine — and as the U.S. hopes to lower record-high gasoline prices as energy prices spike worldwide. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson reportedly plans a trip to Saudi Arabia next week over oil prices as well.

The number of death penalty cases being carried out in Saudi Arabia had dropped during the coronavirus pandemic, though the kingdom continued to behead convicts under King Salman and his assertive son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency announced Saturday’s executions, saying they included those "convicted of various crimes, including the murdering of innocent men, women and children."
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Arabia
Saudi Arabia says it executed 81 convicts in a single day — its largest mass execution
2022-03-13
[CBSNEWS] Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
 on Saturday executed 81 people convicted of crimes ranging from killings to belonging to bad boy groups — the largest known mass execution carried out in the kingdom in its modern history.
Also known as: "Taking out the trash"
The executions carried out surpassed even the toll of a January 1980 mass execution for the 63 bully boyz convicted of seizing the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979, the worst-ever bad boy attack to target the kingdom and Islam's holiest site.

It wasn't clear why the kingdom choose Saturday for the executions, though they came as much of the world's attention remained focused on Russia's war on Ukraine. The number of death penalty
 cases being carried out in Saudi Arabia had dropped during the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague)
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
 pandemic, though the kingdom continued to behead convicts under King Salman
...either the largest species of Pacific salmon or the current Sheikh of the Burnin' Sands, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and Lord of Most of the Arabians...
 and his assertive son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
...Crown Prince and modernizer of Saudi Arabia as of 2016. The Turks hate him, so he must be all right, despite the occasional brutal murder of Qatar-owned journalists...
The Times of Israel adds:
All had been "found guilty of committing multiple heinous crimes," the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported, saying they included convicts linked to the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
 group, or to al-Qaeda, Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
’s Iran's Houthi sock puppets
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him...
 rebel forces, or "other terrorist organizations."

They had been plotting attacks on vital economic sites, or had targeted or had killed members of the security forces, or had smuggled weapons into the country, the SPA added.

Of the 81 people, 73 were Saudi citizens, seven were Yemeni and one was a Syrian national.
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Good morning
2020-10-31
Twitter Stock in FREEFALL!
Saturday October 31st, 2020

Maud Allen fce4eaa4d1e65b4.
Bombardment on Ariha injures civilians, while regime forces and rebels trade fire in Idlib and Aleppo countryside
New Yorker magazine published an expose defending violent antifa militants as people who are simply ''protecting their communities.”
SDF storm houses in Al Busayrah city, arresting three displaced people after looting food supplies
Devout demonstrators crashing the cross fixed on a devastated church in Al Tabaqah city, as a part of ''supportive protests of Prophet Mohammed''
Senior Indian diplomat was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to register Pakistan’s strong protest over ceasefire violations
Two persons killed in explosion in headquarters of ''National Army'' in rural Afrin
Planned Parenthood Lied To
Congress About Selling Aborted Fetuses

Link


Arabia
Car smashes through front door of Grand Mosque in Mecca.
2020-10-31
[Twitter]
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Arabia
Imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca Abdulrahman al-Sudais has allegedly hinted at a possible normalization of ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel
2020-09-10
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Link


Olde Tyme Religion
A step-by-step guide to Hajj
2019-08-10
[Aljazeera] Millions of Muslims from around the world gather annually in Mecca in anticipation of Hajj - the Muslim pilgrimage, which follows the actions of the Prophet Muhammad 1,377 years ago.

Taking part in the pilgrimage at least once in one's lifetime is a major obligation for all able-bodied Muslims of financial means, and between two and three million people participate in the six-day ritual every year.

Hajj occurs in the 12th month of the Islamic lunar calendar, called Dhul-Hijjah, between the eighth and 13th days of the month.

While the specific rituals carried out by Muslims today date back to the Prophet Muhammad's "farewell pilgrimage" in 632 AD, travelling to Mecca was a sacred annual rite for Arabian tribes centuries before the advent of Islam.

According to Islamic tradition, the Kaaba - a black silk-clad stone structure at the heart of the Grand Mosque in Mecca - was built by the Prophet Abraham in biblical times.

Hajj is, put simply, complex. There are several different ways of performing it, and numerous schools of Islamic thought, between which lie many scholarly differences. Here is a breakdown of the steps included in performing hajj.
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Arabia
Saudi 'detains' Mecca imam who 'challenged mixed gatherings'
2018-08-23
[Al Jazeera] Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
 has detained a prominent imam and preacher at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, activists said, after he reportedly delivered a sermon criticising mixed public gatherings.

The social media advocacy group Prisoners of Conscience, which monitors and documents arrests of Saudi preachers and religious scholars, said on Sunday that Sheikh Saleh al-Talib was placed in durance vile
Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!
 after he delivered a sermon on the duty in Islam to speak out against evil in public.

Khaleej Online reported that in his sermon, Talib, who also serves as a judge in Mecca, derided the mixing of unrelated men and women at concerts and other mixed entertainment events.

While there was no direct criticism of the Saudi royal family in his speech, the kingdom has in recent months relaxed laws on female attendance at public events.

Saudi Arabia has yet to issue an official statement on the issue.

Hours after his reported arrest, both of al-Talib's Engish and Arabic Twitter accounts were deactivated.
Link


Arabia
Hajj begins today - Saudis and Iran in a dispute
2017-08-31
More than 1.7 million Muslims from around the world have arrived in Saudi Arabia for the start of the annual hajj pilgrimage this week. Once in Mecca -- the site of Islam's holiest place of worship-- they will be reminded that the ruling Al Saud family is the only custodian of this place.

Large portraits of the king and the country's founder hang in hotel lobbies across the city. A massive clock tower bearing the name of King Salman's predecessor flashes fluorescent green lights at worshippers below. A large new wing of the Grand Mosque in Mecca is named after a former Saudi king, and one of the mosque's entrances is named after another... Saudi Arabia uses its oversight of the hajj to bolster its standing in the Muslim world -- and to spite its foes, from Iran and Syria to Qatar. Its archrival, the Shiite power Iran, has in turn tried to utilize the hajj to undermine the kingdom...

Ahead of this year's hajj, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei essentially called on pilgrims to hold protests...

"Where else, better than Mecca, Medina ... can Muslims go to express their concerns regarding Al-Aqsa and Palestine?" Khamenei said, referring to one of Islam's holiest and most contentious sites in Jerusalem.

Senior Saudi clerics were quick to respond, saying the pilgrimage should not be exploited and reminding worshippers that the ultimate goal of the hajj is "to spend all their time and effort in worshipping Almighty Allah."
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Jordan Says to Install Cameras at Jerusalem Mosque Compound in Days
2016-03-21
[An Nahar] Jordan said on Sunday it will set up security cameras around Jerusalem's flashpoint al-Aqsa mosque compound in the coming days to monitor any Israeli "violations."

In October, U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
 endorsed a plan to install cameras at the site in a bid to calm repeated disturbances, after talks with Jordan's King Abdullah II and Paleostinian leader the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed.

But the Jordanian-run trust or "Waqf" that administers the site -- which houses the famed golden Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque -- then complained that Israeli police had blocked them from installing the cameras.

A "control center" will be set up to monitor round-the-clock video surveillance of the compound, Jordan's Islamic Affairs Minister Hayel Daoud said.

The footage will be broadcast online to "document all Israeli violations and aggressions," he said in a statement, adding that no cameras would be installed inside mosques.

Clashes between Paleostinian youths and Israeli security forces erupted at the compound in September amid fears among Muslims that Israel was planning to change rules governing the site in annexed east Jerusalem.

The Israeli prime minister has said repeatedly there are no such plans.

The al-Aqsa festivities preceded a wave of violence that has killed 198 Paleostinians, 28 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrea
...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age...
n and a Sudanese since October 1, according to an AFP count.

The mosque is the third-holiest site in Islam after the Grand Mosque in Mecca and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina.

It is also revered by Jews as the site of their First and Second Temples and is Judaism's holy site.

Under longstanding rules, Jews are allowed to visit, but not pray in, the compound.
Link


Arabia
Reports: Saudi Plans Tripling of Umrah Visas
2015-10-14
With oil revenues down for the foreseeable future, another source of income must be found post haste.
[AnNahar] Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
 is planning to triple the number of visas it issues for the umrah pilgrimage, newspapers reported on Monday, more than two weeks after a deadly hajj stampede.

The Saudi Gazette and Okaz newspapers quoted Hajj Minister Bandar al-Hajjar as saying that as many as 1.25 million pilgrims are expected to arrive each month starting next year. That compares with 400,000 a month now, the reports said. The new system would allow full use of massive expansion projects at the kingdom's holy sites, Hajjar was quoted as saying.

Umrah is a lesser pilgrimage carried out any time during the year.

The major hajj pilgrimage, which all Muslims with the means are expected to complete at least once in their lives, this year drew about two million faithful.

The number had declined, particularly because of a multi-billion-dollar expansion which began four years ago at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest site. The 400,000-square-metre (4.3-million-square-feet) Grand Mosque enlargement is the equivalent of more than 50 football pitches, and it will allow the complex to accommodate roughly two million people at once.

A crane working on the expansion collapsed into a courtyard of the mosque on September 11, killing at least 108 people including foreign pilgrims, just before hajj.

An even greater tragedy, the worst ever in the history of the pilgrimage, occurred on September 24 during a stoning ritual at Mina, near Mecca. The stampede killed at least 1,587 people, according to tallies issued by foreign officials in more than 30 countries. The toll greatly exceeds the figure of 769 provided by Saudi Arabia.

A formal Saudi inquiry is under way into the stampede, which left hundreds of pilgrims still unaccounted for.
Predicted conclusion: People in crowds can be stupid, and the larger the crowds the stupider.
Efforts to identify the dead continue at a health ministry facility guarded by security officers in the Mecca suburb of Muaissem, sources say. Representatives from foreign consulates are allowed in to the single-storey building to try to identify bodies through albums of photographs, said a source familiar with the operation. Authorities are also using DNA and fingerprint analysis.

Access to the site by journalists is denied.

The same facility also contains the bodies of victims from the stampede,
...hopefully refrigerated...
said the source.

Muaissem is home to the Muala cemetery which many Saudis choose as their final resting place because it is near Islam's holy sites.

Saudi Arabia's organization of the hajj and its response to the disaster provoked foreign criticism, particularly from regional rival Iran, which reported the largest number of dead at 464.

A senior Saudi religious leader, Sheikh Abdulrahman al-Sudais, last Friday denounced "lies" being spread about the kingdom after the accidents.
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