Saudi Scholar Muhammad Al-Sallomi: Minorities Should Have Human Rights, Not Cultural or "Sovereign Rights"

Saudi scholar Dr. Muhammad Al-Sallomi recently said that while minorities have "human rights," they must not have "sovereign rights," which, he said, refer to the national, ideological, and cultural security of a country. Is it conceivable that in Saudi Arabia, "the minorities would toy with the curricula, with the media, or with the military?" he asked rhetorically. Al-Sallomi was speaking on Al-Majd TV on October 23, 2016.

Following are excerpts

Interviewer: Doesn't the Salafi approach exclude other groups?

Muhammad Al-Sallomi: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. History proves that it doesn't. You wanted to give us an example... Take, for example, the Prophet Muhammad. What did he do to the hypocrites? Weren't they a minority? Weren't they enemies? Didn't they oppose the divine call? Yet they remained there in the days of the Prophet Muhammad. He dealt in a similar manner with the Jews, the Christians, and others. But minorities must not have what is called in our modern age "sovereign rights."

Minorities enjoy human rights, all the human rights. In our country, for example, all the human rights enjoyed by the Sunnis must be also enjoyed, for example, by the Shiite minority, the Ismaili minority, the liberal minority, and the secular minority. They must all have human rights.

As for sovereign rights, they vary from one country to another, but in most cases, sovereign rights refer to national security, the ideological security of the country, the cultural security... It is about the security of the mother culture of the country.

Here, for example, the right way is the Salafi way. Is it conceivable, then, that the minorities would toy with the curricula, with the media, or with the military? The military, ideological, and cultural aspects are all part of sovereign security. They constitute sovereign rights, and minorities should have nothing to do with them.

[...]