Islam versus Europe

RIYADH—Security forces and Saudi residents clashed with foreign workers in a Riyadh neighborhood, leaving two people dead and 68 injured amid a nationwide crackdown on improperly documented laborers, police said Sunday

Enlarge Image

Foreign workers carry their belongings as they leave the Manfuhah neighborhood of Riyadh on Sunday. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Police arrested 561 people in the violence in the Manfouha neighborhood, according to a police statement published by the state news agency.

The dead were one Saudi and another, unidentified person, the statement said.

It wasn't clear what specifically triggered the violence. Saudi authorities have been sweeping immigrant neighborhoods, workplaces and other sites throughout the country since enforcement of the crackdown began last week.

The police statement said "instigators" roaming Manfouha threw stones at Saudi residents of the neighborhood and others and threatened people with knives. A video purportedly taken in Manfouha and posted on social media overnight showed noisy, angry crowds in the street and bloodstained men.

In the video, men who appeared to be Saudis used crude clubs to beat dark-skinned men, pummeling one man as he curled on the ground.

Manfouha is a neighborhood of shops and homes with both Saudis and foreign workers from Ethiopia and elsewhere.

Saudi Arabia on Nov. 4 began enforcing a crackdown on migrant workers in Saudi Arabia who lack proper visas and work permits. Authorities and the Asian and African countries providing most of the laborers say thousands have been arrested.

Earlier this week, Saudi media reported authorities shot and killed one Ethiopian man when he allegedly tried to grab an officer's gun when police stopped him, in the labor crackdown.

Saudi Arabia, with a total population of 30 million, is home to more than 7 million foreign workers and their families. Many economists say the reliance on low-paid foreign workers is depressing development and diversification of the Saudi economy.

While Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries in the past have launched repeated programs to reduce the number of foreign workers in their economies, Saudi Arabia's crackdown this month marks a rare enforcement of such a campaign.

Source: WSJ

This story doesn't specify the number of immigrants who are being forced out, but this article mentions the figure of 900,000. Can you imagine the global outcry if a European country planned to expel almost a million immigrants?