Saudi Arabia Has Arrested Famous Quran Reciter, Prisoners of Conscience Confirms

The Prisoners of Conscience Twitter account on Friday conveyed that the sheikh was arrested in August, without giving more details on how and where he was arrested.

“We confirm the detention of Sheikh Dr Abdullah Basfar since August 2020," the Prisoners of Conscience account posted.

Basfar is an associate professor at the department of Sharia and Islamic Studies at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah. He is also the former Secretary-General of the World Book and Sunnah Organization.

The reports about the detention of Sheikh Basfar coincided with reports about the detention of Sheikh Saud Al-Funaisan, who was arrested in March.

Al-Funaisan is a university professor and a former dean of the faculty of Sharia at Al-Imam University in Riyadh.

Some hailed these detentions as part of the crackdown on extremism in the kingdom, based on the plan of the Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman to erase the religious identity of Saudi Arabia.

But a massive number of Saudis expressed their anger over the detention.

Since 2017, when the crown prince took power, he has been cracking down on clerics, journalists, academics and cyber activists over their critical views on his manner of ruling the country and his plans to secularize it.