Saudi judicial council chairman calls for suppressing demonstrators

Saudi Arabia's Chairman of the higher judicial council, Sheikh Saleh Bin Muhammad al-Lheidan, yesterday strongly criticized the Saudi opposition and described demonstrations which took place in the Kingdom several weeks ago as "illegal," calling on the authorities to suppress them.

Al-Lheidan condemned the demonstrations and the marches noting that "they are not alegal methods, and the authority has to prevent such matters. The demonstrations came to Saudi Arabia under the affect of common practices pursued by other countries."

The Saudi official said that citizens' actions "are not fit to restore back rights nor to undermine wrongs, rather, backing rights can be achieved by commitment to it and undermining wrongs can be achieved by magnifying religious rituals."

The chairman of the higher judicial council called on the demonstrators to "give up such matters," noting that if these (demonstrations ) are good, they would have been conducted by al-Sahaba (those who accompanied the prophet) before."