Religious Reciprocity Norwegian Style

The official and only officially tolerated religion in Saudi Arabia is Islam, and the fundamentalist Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam at that. No other public religious practices are allowed and any such attempts are severely punished by the state. There are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. Non-Muslim clergy are not allowed to enter Saudi Arabia. Non-Islamic religious texts and religious items such as rosary beads and crucifixes are similarly not allowed and are confiscated if found.

Saudi Arabia is consistently determined by the U.S. State Department to be a "country of particular concern" for violating international standards of religious freedom. Consistently, if inexplicably, the Secretary of State has granted Saudi Arabia a waiver of sanctions under the International Religious Freedom Act.

Norway appears ready to not be nearly as generous to the kingdom. As reported on October 19 in the Islam in Europe blog, the Saudi government and wealthy Saudi individuals want to build mosques in Norway. While they are legally entitled to do so, the large financial sums involved require government approval and the Norwegian foreign office is refusing to grant that. The foreign ministry noted it would be "a paradox and unnatural to approve funding from sources in a country which is not open to religious freedom."

As noted by Islam in Europe, the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre stated, "We could have just said no, in principal the ministry doesn't approve such things. But when we were first asked, we used the opportunity to add that an approval would be paradoxical as long as it's a crime to establish a Christian community in Saudi Arabia."

The U.S. government officially recognizes Saudi Arabia's egregious violations of religious freedom but does little about it. The Norwegian government, conversely, is stopping Saudi money destined to foment their radical version of Islam within Norway's borders and sending a strong message that Saudi religious intolerance is unacceptable to the civilized western world.

Reader comments on this item

Hats off to Norway

Submitted by Diw, Aug 13, 2011 09:12

Hats off to the NOrwegian Minister Jonas Gahr Støre. I hope other world leaders also would show the same wisdom.

Excellent

Submitted by dannyboy, Oct 26, 2010 22:59

We hear it is best to challenge Islamic text or so-called religious books in our democracy in the U.S.A.

However, as a citizen of a democracy I do not stand alone in saying what the Norwegian leadership style is the absolute best remedy against world-wide spread of this Islam that imposes itself like the cancer it is.

The Norwegian government is indeed to be given an honorary medal for courage. I know other countries have and are incorporating common sense, however, the U.S,A is behind the times.

Norway One USA Zilch

Submitted by Yomayngsup, Oct 26, 2010 22:28

It's truly sad that Norway's leaders have more intelligence and guts than ours. They can see shariah a mile away. I wonder what our policy would have been if Saudi Arabia produced corn instead of having oil reserves.

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