Follow-Up on Execution of Saudi "Sorceress"

Prior post.

Saudi Woman Beheaded for 'Witchcraft'

By RANDY KREIDER | ABC News – Tue, Dec 13, 2011

A Saudi woman was beheaded after being convicted of practicing "witchcraft and sorcery," according to the Saudi Interior Ministry, at least the second such execution for sorcery this year.

The woman, Amina bint Abdulhalim Nassar, was executed in the northern Saudi province of al-Jawf on Monday.

A source close to the Saudi religious police told Arab newspaper al Hayat that authorities who searched Nassar's home found a book about witchcraft, 35 veils and glass bottles full of "an unknown liquid used for sorcery" among her possessions. According to reports, authorities said Nassar claimed to be a healer and would sell a veil and three bottles for 1500 riyals, or about $400.

According to the ministry, Nassar's death sentence was upheld by an appeals court and the Saudi Supreme Judicial Council.

Philip Luther, the interim direct of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa program, condemned Nassar's killing, calling it "deeply shocking."

"The charges of 'witchcraft and sorcery' are not defined as crimes in Saudi Arabia and to use them to subject someone to the cruel and extreme penalty of execution is truly appalling," Luther said.

Luther said that a charge of sorcery is often used by the Saudi government as a smokescreen under which they punish people for exercising freedom of speech.

Nassar was not the first person to be executed for alleged witchcraft by the Saudi government this year. In September, a Sudanese man was publicly decapitated with a sword in the city of Medina after he was found guilty of the same crime.

According to Amnesty International, at least 79 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia so far in 2011, more than three times as many as in 2010. The human rights group condemned the kingdom's reliance on capital punishment.

"Where the death penalty is used, under international law it should only be applied to the most serious crimes," Luther said.

The Saudi embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Saudis Execute "Sorceress"

Absolutely barbaric.  And we do business with these people.  What a bullshit religion.  It was wrong when the so-called "Christians" tortured, drowned and burned women as "witches" and it's wrong for the Islamists to kill anyone for so-called sorcery (men have been accused of sorcery, in Saudi Arabia and also sentenced to death.  Now, whether any male has actually been executed???  The Saudi authorities don't hesitate to kill women, though.)

Saudi Arabia executes woman convicted of 'sorcery'

AP – 11 hrs ago

 

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi authorities have executed a woman convicted of practicing magic and sorcery.

The Saudi Interior Ministry says in a statement the execution took place Monday, but gave no details on the woman's crime.

The London-based al-Hayat daily, however, quoted Abdullah al-Mohsen, chief of the religious police who arrested the woman, as saying she had tricked people into thinking she could treat illnesses, charging them $800 per session.

The paper said a female investigator followed up, and the woman was arrested in April, 2009, and later convicted in a Saudi court.

It did not give the woman's name, but said she was in her 60s.

The execution brings the total to 76 this year in Saudi Arabia, according to an Associated Press count. At least three have been women.

Saudi archeologists discover first-ever Pharaonic artifact

From saudigazette.com.sa
Tuesday, 09 November 2010 - 02 Thul-Hijjah 1431 H
RIYADH: The Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) announced Sunday the discovery of the first-ever Pharaonic antiquity within the Kingdom’s boundaries, dating back to the 12th century BC.
The announcement was made at a press conference held at the National Museum in King Abdul Aziz Historical Center in Riyadh.

Dr. Ali Ibrahim Al-Ghabban, Vice-President of Antiquities and Museums at the SCTA, told journalists the 3,100-year-old discovery was of hieroglyphic inscriptions on a fixed rock near the ancient Taima Oasis bearing a royal signature (a dual cartouche) for Ramses III, one of the kings of Pharaonic Egypt, who ruled Egypt between 1,192 and 1,160 BC.

Al-Ghabban said Saudi archeologists consider the Taima historical oasis, among the largest archeological sites in the Kingdom and the Arabian Peninsula, because it has remnants of ancient walls of almost 13 kilometers in length.

Rest of article.

Lebanese "Sorcerer" Convicted of Witchcraft Faces Death Sentence

Unfortunately, this isn't an April Fools' joke although the story was published on April 1, 2010.  I posted about this man's arrest earlier but right now I cannot find it so no link to the earlier story is provided.  Sorry.

Lawyer: Saudi could behead Lebanese for witchcraft
By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer Bassem Mroue, Associated Press Writer – Thu Apr 1, 11:02 am ET
BEIRUT – The lawyer of a Lebanese TV psychic who was convicted in Saudi Arabia for witchcraft said Thursday her client could be beheaded this week and urged Lebanese and Saudi leaders to help spare his life.

Attorney May al-Khansa said she learned from a judicial source that Ali Sibat is to be beheaded on Friday. She added that she does not have any official confirmation of this. Saudi judicial officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

A Lebanese official said Beirut has received no word from its embassy in Riyadh about Sibat's possible execution. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The Saudi justice system, which is based on Islamic law, does not clearly define the charge of witchcraft.

Sibat is one of scores of people reported arrested every year in the kingdom for practicing sorcery, witchcraft, black magic and fortunetelling. These practices are considered polytheism by the government in Saudi Arabia, a deeply religious Muslim country.

Later Thursday, a dozen people demonstrated near the Saudi embassy in Beirut's western neighborhood of Qureitim. Four of the men wore masks to look like executioners and carried a wooden gallows with a cloth bag hanging from it.

One of the men carried a small banner that read in Arabic: "Don't kill."

Al-Khansa said she has called upon Saudi King Abdullah to pardon Sibat, a 49-year-old father of five. She also says she is in contact with Lebanese officials about the case.

She added that Sibat did not make predictions in Saudi Arabia and was neither a Saudi citizen nor a resident in Saudi and therefore should have been deported rather than tried there.

Sibat made predictions on an Arab satellite TV channel from his home in Beirut. He was arrested by the Saudi religious police during his pilgrimage to the holy city of Medina in May 2008 and sentenced to death last November.

"Ali is not a criminal. He did not commit a crime or do anything disgraceful, " al-Khansa said. "The world should help in rescuing a man who has five children, a wife and a seriously ill mother."

She added that Sibat's mother's health has been deteriorating since her son was sentenced to death.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said last year that Sibat's death sentence should be overturned. It also called on the Saudi government to halt "its increasing use of charges of 'witchcraft,' crimes that are vaguely defined and arbitrarily used."

Last year, the rights group presented a series of cases in the kingdom, including that of Saudi woman Fawza Falih, who was sentenced to death by beheading in 2006 for the alleged crimes of "witchcraft, recourse to jinn (supernatural beings)" and animal sacrifice.

On November 2, 2007, Mustafa Ibrahim, an Egyptian pharmacist, was executed for sorcery in the Saudi capital of Riyadh after he was found guilty of having tried "through sorcery" to separate a married couple, Human Rights Watch said.

Saudi women had more rights at the time of the Romans than today

From Asianews.it
05/02/2008 12:30

This is shown by a book written by a female scholar and published in Great Britain. At that time, they are able to run businesses; while today, at a discussion of work for women in Riyadh, all of the women were in another room.

Riyadh (AsiaNews) - Arab women had more rights at the time of the Romans than they have today. At that time, in fact, their capacity to conduct their own economic affairs was recognised, which is not true in Saudi Arabia today. This is maintained by a female Saudi scholar, Hatoon al-Fassi, in a book entitled "Women In Pre-Islamic Arabia", published by British Archaeological Reports.

Barred from teaching at King Saud University in 2001, the scholar has examined the situation of Nabataea, a kingdom that at the beginning of the Christian era included parts of modern-day Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, and had its capital in Petra. Here, Fassi maintains, women were able to conduct business, without even the form of "protection" required by Greek tradition in these matters.

In her opinion, it is precisely because of the lack of understanding on the part of Islamic scholars of the influences of Greco-Roman legislation on sharia that the limited rights and freedoms for women have arisen.

"We now live the worst status imaginable": this statement from Fawziya al-Oyouni, a women's rights activist, is reported in the review of the book on Middle East Online, which highlights how, when religious authorities, ministers, and businessmen met last month in Riyadh to discuss work for women, there were no women visible, because they were confined to another room, and the men were able only to hear them.