The Iranian government has barred Iranians from making the minor hajj to Saudi Arabia because of the reported mistreatment of two Iranian male teenagers at the Jeddah airport.
What happened to the teens is unclear. Some news reports say they were raped. Others speak of sexual assault. While others just cite abuse or mistreatment.
Deputy Foreign Minister Hossain Amir-Abdollahian said last Thursday that the Saudi police at the airport brought all the airport security officers together and arrested the two officers the teens identified.
Abdollahian said the Saudis had told Iran the security officers faced execution for their crime.
But despite that, the Culture Ministry announced Monday that it was suspending all trips to Saudi Arabia for the minor hajj, which are pilgrimages to the holy sites made outside the annual hajj period.
Culture Minister Ali Jannati told state television, I have ordered the Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization to suspend the umra [minor hajj] until the criminals are tried and punished. Considering what has happened, the dignity of the Iranian people has been damaged and a public demand has formed.”
He acknowledged that Saudi Arabia has “promised to punish the persons in custody. They even asserted that they would execute them. But nothing has been done in reality so far.”
But it has only been two weeks since the incident was reported. In Iran, criminal cases often drag on in the courts for years, so it wasn’t clear how the Saudi actions to date were inadequate. They acted immediately after the incident was reported, and did not wait for an Iranian complaint.
On Tuesday, a Saudi government spokesman confirmed that two police officers had been accused of sexually molesting a pair of Iranian teenagers and their case has been referred for investigation. He didn’t make clear if any charges had actually been filed.
Some speculated that the Tehran regime wanted to pick a fight with the Saudi government because of the many political frictions and because of Saudi Arabia’s military actions in Yemen. But others said the strong action was more likely a response to the widespread outrage among the Iranian public.
The alleged abuse sparked an unauthorized protest by hundreds at the Saudi Embassy in Tehran Saturday. Riot police were deployed in surprisingly large numbers to prevent any overrunning of the embassy grounds.
In response to the public anger, President Rohani ordered an investigation and Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned a Saudi diplomat. The Majlis has been debating possible legislation to suspend the minor hajj.
But what actually happened remains unclear. On Monday, a representative of Iran’s hajj office downplayed the case, saying the two weren’t abused, the Fars news agency reported.
“In the incident, no abuse has happened and the two policemen who attempted abuse were identified and detained by Saudi police,” Ali Ghaziasgar was quoted as saying.
And state broadcasting on Monday quoted Majlis Deputy Ahmad Amirabadi of Qom as saying the parents of the two teens had told the government the boys were not raped although they had been exposed to “sexual harassment,” which was not further explained.
Amirabadi said the families also denied published news reports that one of the teens had attempted suicide.
The teens—one 14 and the other 15 years old—were at the Jeddah airport last month as part of a large group that had just finished the minor hajj and was preparing to fly back to Iran. News reports said two security officers pulled out the two teens when they set off an alarm at a metal detector, took them away for body searches and then returned them later to the rest of the group
Some 500,000 Iranians visit Saudi Arabia each year for the minor pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. Another 100,000 Iranian pilgrims annually travel to Saudi Arabia for the main hajj, which will take place in September this year.
Saudi Arabia hasn’t commented publicly on the dispute.
Last week, Saudi aviation authorities turned away an Iranian plane carrying other pilgrims coming for the minor hajj, saying it did not have permission to use the country’s airspace, the official Saudi Press Agency reported. That was taken as an insult by many in Iran.
There have often been tensions over the hajj between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iranian pilgrims have often complained about discourteous treatment at Jeddah airport. They also complain that Saudi police prevent them from praying at Shiite shrines. The Saudi Wahhabis look down upon many Shiite rituals as un-Islamic.
In the 1980s, Iran insisted on holding “disavowal of infidels” events on the annual hajj—rallies denouncing Israel and the United States. Saudi Arabia banned them. In 1987, one such rally led to clashes with Saudi security forces in which more than 400 pilgrims, mostly Iranians, were killed. Iran then stopped all Iranians from attending the major hajj for three years.
As a result of the compromise reached to allow the return of Iranian pilgrims, Iran now holds a small-scale “disavowal of infidels” rally during the hajj that is confined to the Iranian camp and no longer marches through Mecca.
