Saudis to Execute a Woman for Witchcraft

[headscratcher4]

From the AP.

I am particularly impressed by their proof of witchcraft. Apparently she made a man impotent....via witchcraft. Reminds me of the Monty Python bit...see below. Very disturbing ... and sad.

Saudis to Execute a Woman for Witchcraft
By DONNA ABU-NASR Associated Press Writer
Feb 14th, 2008 | BEIRUT, Lebanon -- A leading human rights group appealed to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah on Thursday to stop the execution of a woman accused of witchcraft and performing supernatural acts.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement that the kingdom's religious police who arrested and interrogated Fawza Falih, and the judges who tried her in the northern town of Quraiyat never gave her the opportunity to prove her innocence in the face of "absurd charges that have no basis in law."

Falih's case underscores shortcomings in Saudi Arabia's Islamic legal system in which rules of evidence are shaky, lawyers are not always present and sentences often depend on the whim of judges.

The most frequent victims are women, who already suffer severe restrictions on daily life in Saudi Arabia: They cannot drive, appear before a judge without a male representative, or travel abroad without a male guardian's permission.

Witchcraft is considered an offense against Islam in the conservative kingdom.

In Falih's case, the judges relied on a coerced confession and on the statements of witnesses who said she had "bewitched" them to convict her in April 2006, according to the group.

Falih later retracted her confession in court, claiming it was extracted under duress, and said that as an illiterate woman, she did not understand the document she was forced to fingerprint.

"The fact that Saudi judges still conduct trials for unprovable crimes like 'witchcraft' underscores their inability to carry out objective criminal investigations," said Joe Stork, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

There was no immediate comment on the statement from Saudi Arabia, where government offices are closed on Thursdays, the start of the Muslim weekend.

"Fawza Falih's case is an example of how the authorities failed to comply even with existing safeguards in the Saudi justice system," he added.

The Saudi court cited an instance in which a man allegedly became impotent after being bewitched by Falih, the rights group said.

An appeals court ruled in September 2006 that Falih could not be sentenced to death for witchcraft because she had retracted her confession. But a lower court subsequently reissued the death sentence for the benefit of "public interest" and to "protect the creed, souls and property of this country," the group's statement said.

HRW statement came a day after Yakin Erturk, the U.N. special investigator for violence against women, wrapped up a 10-day visit to Saudi Arabia during which she highlighted another controversial case that has attracted international criticism.

Ertuk met with Fatima and Mansour al-Timani, who were forcibly divorced by the wife's family on grounds she had married someone from a lesser tribe.

The couple learned of the divorce on Feb. 25, 2006, when police knocked on their door to serve Mansour the divorce papers.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Erturk said she met the wife and husband who were in a "terrible state of mind" and that Saudi officials had promised her arrangements would be made for the couple's reunion, according to Saudi newspaper Arab News.

———




'Burn the witch!'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MONKS: [chanting]
Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem.
[bonk]
Pie Iesu domine,...
[bonk]
...dona eis requiem.
[bonk]
Pie Iesu domine,...
[bonk]
...dona eis requiem.
CROWD:
A witch! A witch!
[bonk]
A witch! A witch!
MONKS: [chanting]
Pie Iesu domine...
CROWD:
A witch! A witch! A witch! A witch! We've found a witch! A witch! A witch! A witch! A witch! We've got a witch! A witch! A witch! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! We've found a witch! We've found a witch! A witch! A witch! A witch!
VILLAGER #1:
We have found a witch. May we burn her?

CROWD:
Burn her! Burn! Burn her! Burn her!
BEDEVERE:
How do you know she is a witch?
VILLAGER #2:
She looks like one.
CROWD:
Right! Yeah! Yeah!
BEDEVERE:
Bring her forward.
WITCH:
I'm not a witch. I'm not a witch.
BEDEVERE:
Uh, but you are dressed as one.

WITCH:
They dressed me up like this.
CROWD:
Augh, we didn't! We didn't...
WITCH:
And this isn't my nose. It's a false one.
BEDEVERE:
Well?
VILLAGER #1:
Well, we did do the nose.
BEDEVERE:
The nose?
VILLAGER #1:
And the hat, but she is a witch!
VILLAGER #2:
Yeah!
CROWD:
We burn her! Right! Yeaaah! Yeaah!
BEDEVERE:
Did you dress her up like this?
VILLAGER #1:
No!
VILLAGER #2 and 3:
No. No.
VILLAGER #2:
No.
VILLAGER #1:
No.
VILLAGERS #2 and #3:
No.
VILLAGER #1:
Yes.
VILLAGER #2:
Yes.
VILLAGER #1:
Yes. Yeah, a bit.
VILLAGER #3:
A bit.
VILLAGERS #1 and #2:
A bit.
VILLAGER #3:
A bit.
VILLAGER #1:
She has got a wart.
RANDOM:
[cough]
BEDEVERE:
What makes you think she is a witch?
VILLAGER #3:
Well, she turned me into a newt.
BEDEVERE:
A newt?
VILLAGER #3:
I got better.
VILLAGER #2:
Burn her anyway!
VILLAGER #1:
Burn!
CROWD:
Burn her! Burn! Burn her!...
BEDEVERE:
Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.
VILLAGER #1:
Are there?
VILLAGER #2:
Ah?
VILLAGER #1:
What are they?
CROWD:
Tell us! Tell us!...
BEDEVERE:
Tell me. What do you do with witches?
VILLAGER #2:
Burn!
VILLAGER #1:
Burn!
CROWD:
Burn! Burn them up! Burn!...
BEDEVERE:
And what do you burn apart from witches?
VILLAGER #1:
More witches!
VILLAGER #3:
Shh!
VILLAGER #2:
Wood!
BEDEVERE:
So, why do witches burn?
[pause]
VILLAGER #3:
B--... 'cause they're made of... wood?
BEDEVERE:
Good! Heh heh.
CROWD:
Oh, yeah. Oh.
BEDEVERE:
So, how do we tell whether she is made of wood?
VILLAGER #1:
Build a bridge out of her.
BEDEVERE:
Ah, but can you not also make bridges out of stone?
VILLAGER #1:
Oh, yeah.
RANDOM:
Oh, yeah. True. Uhh...
BEDEVERE:
Does wood sink in water?
VILLAGER #1:
No. No.
VILLAGER #2:
No, it floats! It floats!
VILLAGER #1:
Throw her into the pond!
CROWD:
The pond! Throw her into the pond!
BEDEVERE:
What also floats in water?
VILLAGER #1:
Bread!
VILLAGER #2:
Apples!
VILLAGER #3:
Uh, very small rocks!
VILLAGER #1:
Cider!
VILLAGER #2:
Uh, gra-- gravy!
VILLAGER #1:
Cherries!
VILLAGER #2:
Mud!
VILLAGER #3:
Uh, churches! Churches!
VILLAGER #2:
Lead! Lead!
ARTHUR:
A duck!
CROWD:
Oooh.
BEDEVERE:
Exactly. So, logically...
VILLAGER #1:
If... she... weighs... the same as a duck,... she's made of wood.
BEDEVERE:
And therefore?
VILLAGER #2:
A witch!
VILLAGER #1:
A witch!
CROWD:
A witch! A witch!...
VILLAGER #4:
Here is a duck. Use this duck.
[quack quack quack]
BEDEVERE:
Very good. We shall use my largest scales.
CROWD:
Ohh! Ohh! Burn the witch! Burn the witch! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Ahh! Ahh...
BEDEVERE:
Right. Remove the supports!
[whop]
[clunk]
[creak]

CROWD:
A witch! A witch! A witch!
WITCH:
It's a fair cop.
VILLAGER #3:
Burn her!
CROWD:
Burn her! Burn her! Burn her! Burn! Burn!...
BEDEVERE:
Who are you who are so wise in the ways of science?
ARTHUR:
I am Arthur, King of the Britons.
BEDEVERE:
My liege!
ARTHUR:
Good Sir Knight, will you come with me to Camelot and join us at the Round Table?
BEDEVERE:
My liege! I would be honored.
ARTHUR:
What is your name?
BEDEVERE:
'Bedevere', my liege.
ARTHUR:
Then I dub you 'Sir Bedevere, Knight of the Round Table'.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

But what if she really is a witch? Those protesters sure will look silly.

[Nogbad]

But what if she really is a witch? Those protesters sure will look silly.

If she really was a witch they would already be newts.

[Soapy Sam]

Like Agnes Nutter you mean?

Incidentally, while the legal system in Saudi is "Islamic" in the same way that in the UK is "Christian", a lot of the real rules are set by Bedouin custom, which predates Islam by a long way.
There's no mention, in the Koran, of women not driving cars, for example.

[Random]

Like Agnes Nutter you mean?
The burning of Agnes Nutter is one of my favorite moments in literature. “Come, gather close” indeed.

[Bob Klase]

Incidentally, while the legal system in Saudi is "Islamic" in the same way that in the UK is "Christian", a lot of the real rules are set by Bedouin custom, which predates Islam by a long way.
There's no mention, in the Koran, of women not driving cars, for example.

It's much more accurate to call the Saudi system "Islamic" than to call the UK system "Christian".

http://countrystudies.us/saudi-arabia/51.htm

The Saudi Arabian legal system in 1992 was based on the sharia, or Islamic law. The sharia was applied throughout the kingdom in strict accordance with the interpretation of the Hanbali school of Sunni Islam. Because pious Muslims believed that the sharia was sacred law, they accepted as judges, or qadis, only men who had spent a number of years studying the accepted sources of the sharia: the Quran and the authenticated traditions (hadith) of the Prophet Muhammad's rulings and practices.

Decisions of the summary and general courts could be appealed to the sharia appeals court.

[billydkid]

We humans. Amazing creatures. Willing to kill each other over a fantasies imagined by other humans who lived a thousand years ago. It makes it look not so ridiculous that some people can feel justified in killing you should you be wearing the wrong colored shirt in the wrong part of town in LA.

[Ralph]

She "made a man impotent".

What is it with Islam?.....it just always seems to involve the genitals in one way or another.

[El Greco]

Do you think that the President of the US could stop this particular execution if he wanted to ? And at what cost ?

[headscratcher4]

Do you think that the President of the US could stop this particular execution if he wanted to ? And at what cost ?

He might suggest they just waterboard her a little bit...

[Aoidoi]

Incidentally, while the legal system in Saudi is "Islamic" in the same way that in the UK is "Christian", a lot of the real rules are set by Bedouin custom, which predates Islam by a long way.
There's no mention, in the Koran, of women not driving cars, for example.... but ancient Bedouin custom mentions women not driving cars?

;)

[Puppycow]

the legal system in Saudi is "Islamic" in the same way that in the UK is "Christian"

:dl:

Good one!

[Darth Rotor]

Do you think that the President of the US could stop this particular execution if he wanted to ? And at what cost ?
Why should he infringe on the sovereign power of the King of a sovereign nation regarding a purely domestic matter, within the jurisdiction of that UN member's territory?

I thought you nice Europeans wanted the mean, cowboy Americans to interfere less, not more, in others' affairs? This isn't America's affair, is it? Maybe you ought to petition the PM of Greece to do something about this.

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe you want to have it both ways.

How's Kosovo doing? Any Greeks there?

DR

[ponderingturtle]

Do you think that the President of the US could stop this particular execution if he wanted to ? And at what cost ?

The press is the most likely to provide such a pressure.

[El Greco]

Why should he infringe on the sovereign power of the King of a sovereign nation regarding a purely domestic matter, within the jurisdiction of that UN member's territory?

I thought you nice Europeans wanted the mean, cowboy Americans to interfere less, not more, in others' affairs? This isn't America's affair, is it?

Yes, that's exactly what we would like. I honestly think that there would be much less blood in the world if the US (and not just the US) would mind more their own job, or, to put it more accurately, would mind more their own job in their own country.

But my question is purely theoretical. I just happened to wonder who would be the most powerful person who could possibly stop this, and naturally I thought of the President of the US.

So, I didn't ask whether he should do something, I asked whether he would be able to find a diplomatic solution (by "diplomatic" I mean something that doesn't involve bombing the whole country) if he wanted to, and what would the probable quid pro quo be. This is why I used the verb could instead of should.

[Darth Rotor]

So, I didn't ask whether he should do something, I asked whether he would be able to find a diplomatic solution (by "diplomatic" I mean something that doesn't involve bombing the whole country) if he wanted to, and what would the probable quid pro quo be. This is why I used the verb could instead of should.
All the Saudi King would have to say in response to a dipilomatic probe is

"Mind your own business" and "How high would you like the price of oil go today?" to brush off pretty much any interference in matters domestic.

DR

[El Greco]

All the Saudi King would have to say in response to a dipilomatic probe is

"Mind your own business" and "How high would you like the price of oil go today?" to brush off pretty much any interference in matters domestic.

I think there must be (there always are!) lots of pending matters between the two countries and both could exert pressure of basically economical nature. Though I have absolutely no idea which those matters would be and whether anyone would be willing to sacrifice a diplomatic trump card in order to save a single life. And of course, the Saudi King wouldn't do something without getting something else in return. I just wonder, what could someone offer in return ?

[ponderingturtle]

Yes, that's exactly what we would like. I honestly think that there would be much less blood in the world if the US (and not just the US) would mind more their own job, or, to put it more accurately, would mind more their own job in their own country.


Then why worry about what happens to some woman in Saudi Arabia?

That is a concern only for the Saudi's.

[gtc]

All the Saudi King would have to say in response to a dipilomatic probe is

"Mind your own business" and "How high would you like the price of oil go today?" to brush off pretty much any interference in matters domestic.

DR

Or he could threaten to stop passing over information (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/15/bae.armstrade)about terrorists.

[Macoy]

The British won't do anything in case they lose an arms contract.

ETA: gtc, what you said.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Do you think that the President of the US could stop this particular execution if he wanted to ? And at what cost ?The Saudis are not immune to public pressure making them appear as backward ignorant fools. The Sudanese government was pressured to stop an absurd execution of the teacher who was sentenced to death for naming a Teddy Bear, Mohammad. These guys know how stupid such actions make their countries look and it embarrasses them.

This disgusting oppression of women mixed with the ignorance of a peasant population is very difficult to stop. But world wide publicity and condemnation is one of the few things short of war that will ever result in change. Integration into the world community has to occur for this stuff to end. That means economically with trade and cultural exposure, but pressure by embarrassment should not be underestimated.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Why should he infringe on the sovereign power of the King of a sovereign nation regarding a purely domestic matter, within the jurisdiction of that UN member's territory?

I thought you nice Europeans wanted the mean, cowboy Americans to interfere less, not more, in others' affairs? This isn't America's affair, is it? Maybe you ought to petition the PM of Greece to do something about this.

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe you want to have it both ways.

How's Kosovo doing? Any Greeks there?

DRCome on DR, Bush's interference by means of bombing people into smithereens is hardly equivalent to taking a public stand in the worldwide community drawing attention to this ignorance.

[Skeptic Ginger]

All the Saudi King would have to say in response to a dipilomatic probe is

"Mind your own business" and "How high would you like the price of oil go today?" to brush off pretty much any interference in matters domestic.

DRYes, Bush's use of the US's military might did so much to demonstrate the power of this country to the world. The right wingers of the Free Republic variety should be proud to stand behind such a tough President. We showed the world we are a force to be reckoned with, didn't we?

Sorry, back to the topic.....

[Skeptic Ginger]

Or he could threaten to stop passing over information (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/15/bae.armstrade)about terrorists.
Wow, didn't know about that one. Unbelievable!

[a_unique_person]

It's much more accurate to call the Saudi system "Islamic" than to call the UK system "Christian".

http://countrystudies.us/saudi-arabia/51.htm

As usual, what god says often reflects what his spokesmen already think. The koran only says a woman has to cover her 'ornaments', not be covered in a tent. There is nothing about not being allowed to drive a car, nor genital mutilation.

[Macoy]

Anyway, if this execution went ahead, it would show convincingly to many that cynicism, corruption and self-aggrandisment have overtaken so many 'moral' states. This whole nonsense should be stopped, now.