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Saudi Arabia beheads woman on charges of 'witchcraft and sorcery'

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X

xbhaskarx

Member
BBC: Saudi woman executed for 'witchcraft and sorcery'‎

A Saudi woman has been executed for practising "witchcraft and sorcery", the country's interior ministry says.

A statement published by the state news agency said Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser was beheaded on Monday in the northern province of Jawf.

The ministry gave no further details of the charges which the woman faced.

The woman was the second person to be executed for witchcraft in Saudi Arabia this year. A Sudanese man was executed in September.

'Threat to Islam'
BBC regionalist analyst Sebastian Usher says the interior ministry stated that the verdict against Ms Nasser was upheld by Saudi Arabia's highest courts, but it did not give specific details of the charges.

The London-based newspaper, al-Hayat, quoted a member of the religious police as saying that she was in her 60s and had tricked people into giving her money, claiming that she could cure their illnesses.

Our correspondent said she was arrested in April 2009.

But the human rights group Amnesty International, which has campaigned for Saudis previously sentenced to death on sorcery charges, said it had never heard of her case until now, he adds.

A Sudanese man was executed in September on similar charges, despite calls led by Amnesty for his release.

In 2007, an Egyptian national was beheaded for allegedly casting spells to try to separate a married couple.

Last year, a Lebanese man facing the death penalty on charges of sorcery, relating to a fortune-telling television programme he presented, was freed after the Saudi Supreme Court decreed that his actions had not harmed anyone.

Amnesty says that Saudi Arabia does not actually define sorcery as a capital offence. However, some of its conservative clerics have urged the strongest possible punishments against fortune-tellers and faith healers as a threat to Islam.
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BBC article on the Lebanese man who was freed from death row last year:
Ali Sabat was the host of a popular Lebanese TV show in which he predicted the future and gave advice.
He was arrested by religious police on sorcery charges while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in 2008.
His lawyer, May el-Khansa, says she has been told Mr Sabat is due to be executed this week.
Ms Khansa has contacted the Lebanese president and prime minister to appeal on his behalf.
There has been no official confirmation from Saudi Arabia, but executions there are often carried out with little warning.
Mr Sabat did make a confession, but Ms Khansa says he only did so because he had been told he could go back to Lebanon if he did.
Human rights groups have accused the Saudis of "sanctioning a literal witch hunt by the religious police".
An Egyptian working as a pharmacist in Saudi Arabia was executed in 2007 after having been found guilty of using sorcery to try to separate a married couple.
There is no legal definition of witchcraft in Saudi Arabia, but horoscopes and fortune telling are condemned as un-Islamic.
Nevertheless, there is still a big thirst for such services in the country where widespread superstition survives under the surface of strict religious orthodoxy.
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Looks like he was saved by the intervention of the Lebanese government...
 
J

JABEE

Member
"God is dead."

Crucible quote, but still this is really stupid. I think people should have evolved past the point where witchcraft is considered a real thing.
 
X

xbhaskarx

Member
This makes me wonder if it's legal in Saudi Arabia to buy video games where you cast magical spells, like Skyrim, etc.
Or to buy newspapers that print horoscopes.
 
D

DarkKyo

Member
You know there's something wrong with these practices when they are happening in an age where others can be revolted about it on an online message board. Seriously, is this really the 21st century?
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
xbhaskarx said:
This makes me wonder if it's legal in Saudi Arabia to buy video games where you cast magical spells, like Skyrim, etc.
Or to buy newspapers that print horoscopes.
Click to expand...
As far as I know, yes. My Saudi Arabian neighbor freshman year talked about playing Oblivion on the 360
 
-COOLIO-

-COOLIO-

The Everyman
i offer my life to conduct a little experiment saudi arabia

you put me in a room and let me do some fucking witchcraft, it'll follow the rituals to a tee, if something happens you can kill me, if not you stop with your bullshit. sound good?
 
ReBurn

ReBurn

Gold Member
I wonder if Lowe's will pull their stores from Saudi Arabia over this?

Witchcraft and sorcery. Wow.
 
B

blame space

Banned
actually I think with video games and cellphones this is the time in history when magic could actually be considered real.

sent via invisible internet waves
 
S

survivor

Banned
See this is why I don't champion Saudi's strict laws against rape and what not in the other thread. The entire justice system is a joke.
 
L

loosus

Banned
Good grief. Saudi Arabia is a POS country. I wish there was some realistic way that the U.S. could cut all ties with these fuckers and be DONE with them. The fact that the state government there goes along with this shit makes them no better than any of the other bottom-of-the-barrel Arab countries. That whole region is a cesspool.
 
C

CabbageRed

Member
I usually assume that the leaders pandering to the religious crowd are don't believe a word of what they're saying, but I how many citizens are true believers, and how many just want blood.
 
G

GillianSeed79

Member
-COOLIO- said:
i offer my life to conduct a little experiment saudi arabia

you put me in a room and let me do some fucking witchcraft, it'll follow the rituals to a tee, if something happens you can kill me, if not you stop with your bullshit. sound good?
Click to expand...

I saw 'em making poppets in mosque. I did I say. I did. And there be a needle in it I swear. And then me cow died.

Saudia Arabia: Good enough. Off with his head.

Seriously, though, as someone whose family comes from Salem, it's a shame this kind of shit still happens. Weren't the arabs and the middle east at one point at the forefront of science, mathmatics, medicine, etc?
 
C

Cooter

Lacks the power of instantaneous movement
loosus said:
Good grief. Saudi Arabia is a POS country. I wish there was some realistic way that the U.S. could cut all ties with these fuckers and be DONE with them. The fact that the state government there goes along with this shit makes them no better than any of the other bottom-of-the-barrel Arab countries. That whole region is a cesspool.
Click to expand...

What gets me is how passionate people in the west are about civil rights like abortion and gay marriage and how little they care about far worse offenses in other countries. I understand that people are naturally more concerned with what's going on in their little world but there are some seriously sick things going on around the world and you rarely see them brought to light.
 
C

Cooter

Lacks the power of instantaneous movement
I don't care if she was caught flying a broom. This is straight up evil. Why not behead Christians, Jews, Hindus, and rainbow trout worshippers Saudi? WTF?
 
Z

Zinga

Banned
We could learn a lot from the Saudis, I can think of a lot of bankers that should be beheaded in the west.
 
J

jambo

Member
The_Technomancer said:
Why do we have relations with Saudia Arabia again?
Click to expand...

Because you guys keep buying these

GtAUf.jpg
 
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