Iran says Saudi Arabia has expelled 6 state media journalists ahead of the hajj after detaining them

Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Iran said Wednesday that Saudi Arabia expelled six members of a team from its state television station after they were detained for nearly a week in the kingdom ahead of the Hajj.

Saudi Arabia did not immediately acknowledge the incident, which comes a year after Riyadh and Tehran reached a Chinese-brokered detente. However, there have been tensions for decades between Sunni and Shiite powers over the kingdom’s holy sites, particularly around the upcoming hajj pilgrimage.

Iranian state television described the arrests as beginning more than a week ago, when three members of the team were detained while recording a Quran reading at the Prophet Muhammad’s mosque in Medina. He did not offer details about what led to their arrest, but said that the men, after “several hours of interrogation,” ended up detained in a police detention center.

Two days after that, Saudi police detained a journalist from the Iranian Arabic-language channel Al Alam and another journalist from state television after they got out of a car to attend a prayer service with Iranian pilgrims, state television said. . Another radio journalist was detained in a hotel in Medina.

He said the six men were later released and expelled to Iran without the opportunity to participate in the hajj, a pilgrimage required of all able-bodied Muslims once in their lifetime. The expulsion came after efforts by state television and Iran’s Foreign Ministry to free the men. Iranian state television insisted that the men committed no crime and that their detention was unjustified.

Saudi officials did not immediately acknowledge the incident and did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Iran, the world’s largest Shiite Muslim country, and Sunni power Saudi Arabia broke diplomatic relations in 2016 after Saudi Arabia executed prominent Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. Angry Iranians protesting the execution stormed two Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.

Last year, Chinese mediation restored ties even though Saudi Arabia was still locked in a years-long deadlocked war with Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia had previously severed ties with Iran between 1988 and 1991 over unrest during the 1987 Hajj and Iran’s attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf. That diplomatic freeze caused Iran to prevent pilgrims from attending the hajj in Saudi Arabia. Iranian pilgrims were also briefly prevented from attending the hajj during the most recent round of tensions.

Iran has insisted in the past that its pilgrims be allowed to hold large-scale “disavowal of infidels” ceremonies, demonstrations that denounce Israel and the United States, an ally of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia prohibits such political demonstrations during the Hajj, which is attended by about 2 million Muslims around the world.