In a blatant violation of Human Rights saudi Arabia has repatriated seven nurses from Kerala without wages.The nurses were stranded in two separate cases without papers, an official working with the labour section of the Indian Embassy said. "In the first case, four Indian female nurses – Ashley, Bindu, Aasha and Shely – came to the Kingdom five years ago to work in Aghsan Aliwy Hospital in Hafr Al-Batin," M Aleem said.
"The sponsor neither renewed the residence permits (Iqamas) of the workers nor did he allow the nurses to leave during vacations as per the provisions of the work agreements," he said.  read more »

i
Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 11, 2012,
Three nurses from Kerala have been left stranded in Saudi Arabia for more than two years, with no source of income and no documents to come back to the country. “We have been unemployed for more than two years, and are unable to return home because we do not have the papers,” Saramma V, one of the nurses, informed from Riyadh, the Saudi capital.  read more »

RIYADH, June 29 (Reuters) : Saudi Arabian police detained five women for defying the conservative kingdom's driving ban, an activist said on Wednesday, although police said they had detained only one.  read more »

AROUND much of the Western world, Christmas hymns are still echoing in the ears of happy holidaymakers, but elsewhere, Christians, for whom Christmas is one of the holiest days, are being persecuted.

In calling for religious freedom to be respected, the Pope appealed for reciprocity - full rights for Christians in Islamic states where laws ban them from practising their faith openly. Such a call does not sound unreasonable. No Christian state bans the practising of Islam, but the 3.5 million Christians of all denominations who live in the Gulf Arab region, the birthplace of Islam, are barely tolerated and any form of non-Muslim worship takes place in private.

While Australian troops are dying in Afghanistan in a war with Islamist forces, the Afghan Government which our forces are supporting seems incapable of implementing policies that respect fundamental principles guaranteeing real religious freedoms.Afghanistan is not alone. Islamic nations which regularly issue calls for the West to respect Islam and show tolerance for its traditions, rarely practise what they preach.A 200-page study of religious freedom reveals that Christianity is under siege in the Islamic world and that the dwindling number of Christians still living in Islamic nations remain among the most oppressed.
Pope Benedict, who released the study last month, called for all nations to guarantee freedom for all to practise their faith publicly, with authentic respect for each person.  read more »