This is what happens in Saudi Arabia, our trading partner, when a Muslim praises the Jews:

A teacher in Saudi Arabia was sentenced to 40 months in jail and 750 lashes for discussing the Bible and praising Jews.Secondary school teacher Mohammed al-Harbi, who will be flogged in public, was taken to court by his colleagues and students, according to the Saudi newspaper Al-Madina. He was charged with promoting a 'dubious ideology, mocking religion, saying the Jews were right, discussing the Gospel and preventing students from leaving class to wash for prayer,' the newspaper disclosed. Mr al-Harbi is apparently to receive 50 lashes each week for 15 weeks, in in the public market in the town of Al- Bikeriya in Al-Qassim. He was the school activities organizer at the Al-Fowailiq High School in the town of Ein Al-Juwa in Al-Qassim. Following a terrorist attack at the Al-Hamra Compound in Riyadh in 2003, Al-Harbi used his position as an educator to enlighten his students and warn them of terrorism and its consequences. He went to great lengths by talking to students, hanging anti-terrorism signs around the school and speaking out against terrorism.

Mr al Harbi has displayed astounding courage in standing up for life, moderation and decency in the very heart of darkness itself. Shamefully, the UK and US governments are hugger-mugger with the Saudi tyranny whose vicious punishment of Mr al Harbi is but a tiny example of the evil it does in the world. The US State Department recently criticised Saudi Arabia for denying religious freedom. If that pious declaration is to mean anything at all, if the west’s desire to promote Muslim moderation has any substance to it at all, the loudest possible voices should be raised at the level of the US and UK governments to demand that this inhuman treatment of Mr al Harbi be stopped. Like other courageous Muslims, he should be regarded in the same way that the west once regarded dissidents in the Soviet Union -- people whose cause must be championed, and whose fate must be publicly protested at every turn to rouse the conscience of the world.