Joel Hendon

Saudi Arabia Under Fire Again For Beheading A Woman


Posted: Monday, January 16, 2012

by Joel Hendon
http://hebronics.org/index.html

According to Lebanon’s The Daily Star newspaper, the Saudis beheaded a woman last month after finding her guilty of practicing witchcraft and sorcery. The woman, Amina bint Abdulhalim Nassar, was executed in Jawf, the northern province of the nation.

Amnesty International has called on the Saudis to declare an immediate moratorium on their executions since they currently have 140 people on their death row. They also reported that this beheading brought the total to 73 executions during 2011. The total executions in 2009 was only 27, compared to 2008 with 67.

Saudi Arabia is one of only a very few nations who hold to a strict interpretation to the Muslim sharia law. Under this law a great many crimes are punishable beheading or stoning to death. Besides sorcery, the following are considered capital crimes: Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking under Sharia law.

One spokesperson for Amnesty International made inferences that in the past the charge of sorcery has often been used as a catch all where a person was given an unfair trial for exercising their freedom of speech or religion.

Saudi Arabia is an ultra conservative follower of Sharia or Islamic law and is a Monarchial government where only the Saudi Prince can override the courts sentencing.

Another Saudi lady was beheaded in October 2011 for killing her husband by burning his house down.

Saudi Arabia's judicial system also made headlines this month for the sentence imposed on Australian national Mansor Almaribe, who was convicted of blasphemy while performing the Hajj in the kingdom, and sentenced to 500 lashes and a year in prison. The Australian government is pleading Almaribe's case. (CNN December 13,2011)

Philip Luther, the interim direct of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa program 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. (News.yahoo.com December 13, 2011)

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. (Ibid)
Author Biography: Joel Hendon was born near Gadsden Alabama. He attended public schools in Cherokee County, Alabama and after serving a tour of duty in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, attended Jacksonville State University, majoring in Business Administration. He became a Christian in 1948, and although he followed secular work as a career and retired from Allied Signal Aerospace, he is an avid student of the Holy Bible and related works as well as biblical history. He has an extensive website of conservative religious and political articles.http://hebronics.org/index.html

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