(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - “For the past few months, rioters possessing firearms from the mainly Shiite area have tried to drag innocent civilians in absurd confrontations with security forces with the aim of carrying out a foreign agenda,” the interior ministry said.
All 23 are Shiite Saudi nationals from the eastern region, which recently has held several protests over discrimination in the Wahhabi extremists kingdom.
However, the ministry’s spokesman, Mansour al-Turki, said on state television that “the outlaws are few and do not represent the eastern region,” adding that some of those wanted for arrest hold criminal records.
He also called on citizens to inform the authorities of any other rioters, offering rewards.
In November four people were killed in the province's Qatif oasis area when clashes broke out near police checkpoints and at a funeral.
Eastern Province Shi'ite activists said aggressive policing at checkpoints and the arrest of some community members had provoked the trouble.
The only significant protests to hit Saudi Arabia, the Middle East's largest economy, during the Arab uprisings were among Shi'ites in Eastern Province, where small demonstrations persisted throughout 2011.
Saudi Shi'ites complain of widespread discrimination, which they say prevents them from gaining good government jobs, reduces state investment in their neighborhoods and leads to closures of Shi'ite centers of worship.
The last official Saudi figures showed there were fewer than one million Shi'ites in Eastern Province out of a total 3 million people, but a 2006 Human Rights Watch report put the number of Shi'ites there at 3 million and a 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks estimated the Shi'ite population at 2.5 million.
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