MUSCAT, 28 January 2005 — More than 100 people, including prominent academics, are being held in Oman following a wave of arrests earlier this month, relatives of the detainees said yesterday.
“Several professors from the education and Islamic studies faculties of Sultan Qaboos University are among more than 100 people who were arrested on Jan. 9,” one family member told AFP.
His account was corroborated by the testimony of relatives of other detainees.
Family members said those arrested were followers of the Ibadi Muslim sect dominant in the Gulf sultanate.
Relatives said the security forces gave no reason for the arrests but added that they came amid rumors of a plot by Islamists to sabotage the Muscat Festival, a month-long shopping and cultural event which opened last Friday.
Security forces had intercepted an arms shipment from neighboring Yemen, but family members strongly denied any link between their detained relatives and the arms shipment or Al-Qaeda.
“We were astonished by father’s arrest in his Muscat home at dawn on Jan. 9,” said Taleb Al-Abri, son of Islamic studies professor Ali ibn Hilal Al-Abri.
Taleb acknowledged that, like many Muslims, his father opposed the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq but insisted his father had no connection to terrorist activity and no connection to Al-Qaeda.
He said police had seized six computers as well as cameras from family homes in Muscat and in the Al-Hamra region southeast of the capital.
Al-Hayat reported on Wednesday that some 300 suspects, including “military officials”, had been detained in a wave of arrests this month. It too said the crackdown followed an arms seizure near the Yemeni border.
Oman has largely been spared terrorism that has rocked Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
