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Saudi Arabia recently preached to the international community about the need to confront "intolerance, extremism and human rights violations."

If this sounds surreal, consider the following excerpts from a July 26 report in the Saudi Gazette (emphasis added):

Saudi Arabia has reiterated its call on the international community to criminalize any act vilifying religious beliefs and symbols of faith as well as all kinds of discrimination based on religion.

Saudi Arabia wants Western cartoonists, comedians, and others—people who represent only their individual selves—to stop mocking the religious beliefs and symbols of Islam, even as the Arabian kingdom’s own institutionalized policy is to vilify and discriminate against the religious beliefs and symbols of all other faiths.

Not a single non-Muslim worship building is allowed there; the highest Islamic authority decreed that it is “necessary to destroy all the churches of the region.” Whenever Christians are suspected of meeting in a house for worship—or as one Saudi official once complained, “plotting to celebrate Christmas”—they are arrested and punished.

Any cross or other non-Muslim symbol found is confiscated and destroyed. Anyone caught trying to smuggle Bibles or any other “publications that have prejudice to any other religious belief other than Islam” can be executed.

In 2011, a Colombian soccer-player “was arrested by the Saudi moral police after customers in a Riyadh shopping mall expressed outrage over the sports player’s religious tattoos, which included the face of Jesus of Nazareth on his arm.” In 2010 a Romanian player kissed the tattoo of a cross he had on his arm after scoring a goal, causing public outrage.

And yet, Saudi Arabia has the unmitigated gall to ask the West—where Islam is freely practiced, where mosques and Korans proliferate, and where Muslims are granted full equality—to cease “discrimination based on religion.”

Continues the Saudi Gazette:

Addressing an international symposium on media coverage of religious symbols based on international law, which started in this French city on Saturday, a senior Saudi official said the Kingdom emphasized years ago that the international community must act urgently to confront ethnic, religious and cultural intolerance, which has become widespread in all communities and peoples of the world.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, few countries exhibit as much “ethnic, religious and cultural intolerance” as does the Arabian kingdom. Along with the aforementioned discrimination and intolerance against all other religions, Saudi Arabia is notoriously clannish and racist.

Ten percent of the population is denied equal rights because of their race; black men are barred from holding many government positions; black women are often put on trial for “witchcraft”; castrated African slaves are sold on Facebook in the birthplace of Islam, and its princes are known to beat their black slaves to death. Human Rights Watch has described conditions for foreign workers in Saudi Arabia as resembling slavery.

Worse of all is if you’re black and Christian. After 35 Christian Ethiopians were arrested and abused in prison for almost a year, simply for holding a private house prayer, one of them said after being released: “They [Saudis] are full of hatred towards non-Muslims.”

This is unsurprising considering that the Saudi education system makes it a point to indoctrinate Muslim children with hatred, teaching that “the Apes are the people of the Sabbath, the Jews; and the Swine are the infidels of the communion of Jesus, the Christians.”

According to Saudi novelist Hani Naqshabandi, “Our religious institutions do not give us room to exercise free thought…. They [Saudi institutions] said that the Christian is an infidel, a denizen of hell, an enemy to Allah and Islam. So we said, ‘Allah’s curse on them.’”

Again, bear in mind that all this is official Saudi policy—not the “free expressions” of individuals, which the Saudis are condemning as creating “ethnic, religious and cultural intolerance” around the world.

The Saudi Gazette goes on to quote one Abdulmajeed Al-Omari, “a senior Saudi official.” Speaking at the recent international symposium in France which hosted representatives from 16 European nations, he said that Western “freedom of expression without limits or restrictions” are “abuses [that] bred intolerance, extremism and human rights violations…”

Again, it bears reemphasizing that in the West individuals are free to express themselves. And it’s just that—expression, not action (as in murder, terrorism, rape, enslavement, church bombings, or the slaughter of “apostates”).

As for Western governments, thanks to political correctness, not only do they discourage freedom of expression but honest, objective talk concerning Islam is suppressed (hence every Western leader maintains that ISIS “has nothing to do with Islam,” AKA, “the religion of peace”).

Meanwhile, it is precisely Islamic teachings that breed “intolerance, extremism and human rights violations,” and not just in Saudi Arabia but all throughout the Muslim world. And it is precisely these teachings that prompt Western peoples to criticize Islam, including through cartoons.

None of this is enough to embarrass the Saudis from their farce:

Al-Omari said the Saudi participation in the symposium falls in line with its efforts to support the principles of justice, humanity, promotion of values and the principles of tolerance in the world as well as to emphasize the importance of respecting religions and religious symbols.

Actually, because of Saudi Arabia’s absolute lack of “justice, humanity, promotion of values and the principles of tolerance,” even the U.S. State Department lists the home of Islam and Muhammad as one of eight “Countries of Particular Concern.”

Thus in ultra-hypocritical manner, Saudi Arabia asks the international community to stop exercising freedom of expression—even as it openly and unapologetically persecutes non-Muslims, discriminates against non-Saudis, and violates the most basic of human rights on a daily basis.

It still remains to determine which is more surreal, more unbelievable: that Saudi Arabia, which tops the charts of state-enforced religious intolerance and ethnic discrimination, is calling on the West “to confront ethnic, religious and cultural intolerance,” or that the West deigns to participate in such disgracefully hypocritical forums.

Editor’s note: The following account was written for RaymondIbrahim.com by an American teacher in the Muslim world.

Last week, while reading different articles on the Islamic State's persecution of Christians in the Middle East, I was made aware for the first time that following the fall of the Iraqi city of Mosul in July of 2014, the Islamic State spray painted in red the symbol – – ن on Christian homes and businesses throughout the city.

For those unfamiliar with the character ن (pronounced noon), it represents the 14th letter of the Arabic alphabet and is the equivalent of the Roman letter N. For many Muslims around the world, the ن stands for Nazarene, a demeaning Arabic word for the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, or Christians.

After finishing the article, the first thing that came to my mind was that the Islamic State adopted a practice used by the Nazis to identify and persecute Jews prior and during World War II. The practice in question involved the Star of David being painted on Jewish businesses or worn as an armband or pinned to their chest – which became known as the yellow badge of shame).

However, I soon remembered that the Islamic State is not in the habit of adopting elements of other cultures no matter how cruel those practices are, and that the origins of the yellow badge of shame and the ن are most likely rooted in Islamic tradition.

After some research, I discovered that the practice of forcing non-Muslims to wear clothing differentiating them from their Muslim conquerors has its origin in "The Pact of Umar" (637 AD), or the "Conditions of Omar," which was imposed on conquered Christians by Umar Ibn Al-Khattab, the second rightly-guided Caliph and a senior companion to the Prophet Mohamed.

On top of forcing non-Muslims to wear their customary clothing while preventing them from wearing Muslim garments, The Pact of Umar also stated that non-believers must wear a belt around their waist. The need to differentiate Muslims from non-Muslims through their clothing is rooted in the following hadith, Abu Dawud20:3170* and Sahih Bukhari7:72:786**, where the Prophet Muhammad orders his followers to look and behave differently from Jews and Christians.

So, from the year 637 when Christians and Jews were forced to wear yellow belts, to 2001 when the Taliban required Hindus in Afghanistan to wear yellow badges, passing through the decree of Bagdad (1121) where Jews had to wear yellow stars, Muslims have had a very long history of forcing their conquered subjects to differentiate themselves through their clothing.

With this in mind, I wouldn't be surprised that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who spent many years in Berlin as Hitler's guest, was the person who suggested that the Nazis use the "yellow badge of shame" on their Jewish victims.

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* "Narrated Ubadah ibn as-Samit: The Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) used to stand up for a funeral until the corpse was placed in the grave. A learned Jew (once) passed him and said: This is how we do. The Prophet (peace be upon him) sat down and said: Sit down and act differently from them." – Abu Dawud20:3170

** "Narrated Abu Huraira : The Prophet said, "Jews and Christians do not dye their hair so you should do the opposite of what they do." – Sahih Bukhari7:72:786