“Save us from the tyrant”, Syrian pilgrim yells

A Syrian man on pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia used a rope to climb up a balcony in the Grand Mosque in Makkah and began screaming slogans against Syrian President Bashar Al Assad before he was seized by security men.

“Oh, Arabs…Muslims… save us from the tyrant Bashar…he is shedding the blood of your Syrian brothers,” the man screamed in the packed Mosque, in a reference to the anti-regime uprising in Syria, where nearly 3,500 people have been killed over the past seven months.

Saudi newspapers said security men reached the balcony and arrested the 27-year-old man, adding that he would be prosecuted.

Saudi Arabia had warned the nearly three million Muslim pilgrims who converged on the holy sites in Makkah last week against using the Haj gathering for political and other non-religious purposes.

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.