Human Rights Watch has appealed to Saudi Arabia to halt the execution of a woman convicted of witchcraft.
The illiterate woman was detained by religious police in 2005 and allegedly beaten and forced to fingerprint a confession that she could not read.
Among her accusers was a man who alleged she made him impotent.
Human Rights Watch said that Ms Falih had exhausted all her chances of appealing against her death sentence and she could only now be saved if King Abdullah intervened.
What is there to say?
If only such a power really existed.
With all my knowledge and experience, it’s the first time I ever heard of such a feat, other than physical amputation.
So obviously Shariah law will make a most educated choice – scaring the hell out of women into total submission.
#1 If that power existed she could make the whole damn lot impotent and this problem would be solved in a generation.
if i understand correctly, once the republicans ban evolution from the science textbooks, those “preaching it” will be burned at the stake.
gotta love progress! and freedom!
Congratulations to the Saudi government for having the balls to do something about the illiterate underclass.
Saudi Arabia has once again exposed to the world how retarded and backward they are. The underlying culprit is religion which validates superstition which leads to irrational retarded behavior.
What is there to say?…
Some parts of this world are still living in the dark ages.
Maybe they will burn her in gasoline after stoning her. The war in Iraq has been billed as a fight for our freedom while we uphold in arms the most fascists theocracy the planet currently knows. Suadi Arabia makes Iran look like a trip to Christian rock camp.
She turned me into a newt….
Well, I mean – what can the educated, modern, enlightened Saudi royal family do? They’ve only got access to unlimited money and total control over the government and populace. They couldn’t possibly do anything to discourage or make unpopular the Wahabbist anti-progress, anti-Western throwbacks who are behind all this shit…
No, they just have to sit idly by, holding hands with Monkey-Boy and wishing they could change things – if only they had any power or money.
Wow… amazing. I’m so glad that Christians never killed hundreds of thousands of witches in the United States and Europe.
eyeofthetiger
The war in Iraq has been billed as a fight for our freedom while we uphold in arms the most fascists theocracy the planet currently knows. Suadi Arabia makes Iran look like a trip to Christian rock camp.
—–
Not to mention that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi.
#10 Yes, Europe and the area to become the USA in the 1600’s is a fair comparison to Mid-East nations in 2008.
That’s probably why we don’t like them.
Hey, whatever happened to that last DU Saudi outrage where a rape victim was to be sent to prison?
King pardons rape victim
http://tinyurl.com/2lskoe
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=14621
From Arab News: “Sheikh Ahmad ibn Kasim Al-Ghamdi, head of the commission in Makkah, said, “We carry out a lot of work to overcome this problem, which of late has become rampant among people. I advise people to stick to Islamic principles and give up hope in such things. Islam has forbidden such things and considers magic to be a type of polytheism.””
Even though Saudi’s pray 5 times a day & their flag states “There is only one God,” … you don’t suppose they really believe it, do you? /s
Where was US “perfect” society and constitution 300 years ago when they needed it for the Salem witch trials?
RBG
well ducks float in water, and so does wood, so if she floats then she must be a witch and you can burn her, as she is made from wood!
Ah the monty python mentality of third world nations….
What else but religion could motivate people to do such horrible things?
11. JPV. These wouldn’t be from the same group of Saudi’s that would dearly like to depose the King and keep the clock running at 632 AD? Shall we let them?
Maybe I missed the Saudi A-bomb effort, and a military so strong they didn’t need US defence during Gulf War 1.
12 GigG perhaps you’d like them a bit more if you realized that instead of 300 years like the US and your ancestors, the Saudis are modernizing in the span of decades.
RBG
Ah, yes, the wonders of modernization. Yesterday, executions for witchcraft; today, executions for witchcraft AND Starbuck’s; tomorrow, Saudi Arabia bursts into full flower with executions for witchcraft, Starbuck’s, AND driving licenses for women accompanied by male relatives.
Shit, in another 15, 20 years, they’ll be the most civilized country on the planet!
#16 They have been modernizing just as long as my ancestors. They just weren’t as good at it. In fact, one could argue they had the lead for a while.
They didn’t start again until we started pouring money in and pumping oil out. And there is no reason to beleive they would have.
#x, RBG,
Probably where it was during the McCarthy era.
Or today at Gitmo. Your choice.
Great argument Uncle Ben. I guess then we agree that Mao, Pol Pot, and Stalin did not commit their crimes because of a lack of religion, right?
I can’t see philosophy, politics, Greed, or sexism causing someone to execute someone over a charge of WITCHCRAFT.
good game
Why are these people so fucked up ?
#9 and #11. You have hit on something which strikes to a fundamental problem with Saudi Arabia. Yeah, they sure have a lot of money (while it lasts), but it’s not going to last forever. The Saud Family is barely holding on against the radicals who want to take over Mecca and Medina and create a new Islamic Caliphate (hence the 15 0f 19 9/11 attackers). A new Islamic Caliphate would be real bad news for everyone. If you don’t know why, study past caliphates and what they did.
In case we missed it, establishing a new de-facto caliphate was what the Iran-Iraq war was about, the Iraq-Kuwait (Gulf War 1) was mostly about (along with oil), and partially what the current war is about (besides oil).
Since 9/11 Bin Laden was very specific that his purpose was to reestablish the mighty Islamic Caliphate that would spread all over the world. Well, you have to start with the Islamic holy lands to get this done and therefore he had to get the biggest roadblock out of the way. That would be the US.
So it comes down to choosing the lesser of two evils. An Islamic Caliphate (very bad) or a repressive government (bad, but less bad).
Now the question is, what’s going to happen when the oil runs out?
#13. You’re absolutely right. 300 years ago we certainly did have a problem with witch trials – 300 years ago…
Although in all fairness we conveniently forget that our own history is not pristine either.
Ah_Yea
You seem to miss something; whatever inter-Islamic struggle may or may not be going on behind the scenes, the fact remains that the Sauds can do something about it. Unfortunately, it seems that there is no single strong leader within the family who the majority of the others will accept and get behind… because if the will was there, right here and now they have at their disposal absolutely unlimited resources that no splinter group of radicals could remotely match. Their hands are not tied in the way that ours are; they can eliminate threats by unilateral action. Those seeking to topple them are neither invisible nor invincible. They can be, and should be, immediately removed from the planet. That they are not says that the family does not sufficiently share the same goals or the same concerns to act in unison. Probably because it has grown too large and extended.
It isn’t that they can’t crush the radicals – they won’t, out of shortsighted individual self-interest. In fact, if the bin Laden branch of the royal family were not so self-absorbed as individuals with their own little realms, they could take out brother Osama at any time. But… of course they won’t.
To be honest, I suspect the scummy Bush family is so tight with the Sauds that they may have agreed to avoid taking little brother O out… I wouldn’t put it past ’em, they ARE that amoral. Besides, he’s made such a useful boogieman for the jackbooted thugs that want to complete the transition of America to a full-fledged plutocracy.
BTW – thank you, American “diplomacy” and “trade” and “laissez-faire capitalists” – for making gazillionaires out of this bunch of semicivilized barbarians, just so you could get your cut. And a special shout-out to the individuals all over middle America who couldn’t give less of a shit about the political, economic OR environmental state of the world as long as their neighbor gets to see them running young Ethan to hockey practice in their badass 3-ton Hummer.
>>>> # 10 JPV said, Wow… amazing. I’m so glad that Christians never killed hundreds of thousands of witches in the United States and Europe.
Hundreds of thousands? Did you just make that number up?
The Salem Witch Trials — the most famous — had a whopping three convictions.
http://tinyurl.com/5g4k6
(Of course, any trials where too many but c’mon, get some perspective.)
Well – let’s be complete here, shall we? What we now call the Salem trials actually includes some from other nearby places in the province. All of them taken together, the total number of accused witches who died was a grand total of about 25.
Still a ways to go to “hundreds of thousands”… 🙂
Yes, THC, I think you’re right.
I appreciate your point. I stand corrected. This is why I like this blog, I get to talk to people who have thought about these things and help me get a better understanding!
I also wholeheartedly agree about the 3 ton Hummer!
As a Christian, I take responsibility (in a collective sense) for the Witch Trials, Crusades and the Inquisition.
But it’s fair to point out that those events were much smaller (in body counts, at least) to some of the truly horrific bloodbaths that happened in the 20th Century.
A fair argument can be made that Christianity played a role in mid-century fascism in Italy and that it turned a blind eye to Nazism.
But even worst was Stalinism and other Communist purges. Even some of the smaller ones dwarf anything the Catholics did.
And we religious people had nothing to do with those — just the opposite, we were often the victims of communism. The “enlightened” atheists and materialists believed we needed to be eradicated because we were were impeding progress.
Yet, I never hear atheists taking any sort of responsibility (for that in a collective sense or otherwise).
Instead, they continue this tragic assertion that we religious people are holding back the world from progress. My forefathers painfully learned where that belief leads! (the ones that weren’t slaughtered, anyway.)
Unbelievable, WITCHCRAFT? Really? I knew the suadi’s where insane but this is beyond anything I have seen before.
Unbelievable, WITCHCRAFT? Really? I knew the suadis where insane but this is beyond anything I have seen before.
#10 and #12: well put that is what I have been saying for a while a majority of the middle east is going through their dark ages now. But I think its unfair to make that claim about the whole area as some of the countries are pretty progressive (you would be amazed). For example Jordan and egypt to a lesser extent. And lets not forget Lebanon (despite the recent political problems) alchohol is legal so is prostitution, and religious freedome is in the constituetion of the country which is why they have 19 different sects from 4 religions.