Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Saudi judge condemns ‘immoral TV’, BBC, September 12, 2008

The most senior judge in Saudi Arabia has said it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV channels which broadcast immoral programmes.

Sheikh Salih Ibn al-Luhaydan said some “evil” entertainment programmes aired by the channels promoted debauchery.

Dozens of satellite television channels broadcast across the Middle East, where they are watched by millions of Arabs every day.

The judge made the comments on a state radio programme.

He was speaking in response to a listener who asked his opinion on the airing of programmes featuring scantily-dressed women during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

“There is no doubt that these programmes are a great evil, and the owners of these channels are as guilty as those who watch them,” said the sheikh.

“It is legitimate to kill those who call for corruption if their evil can not be stopped by other penalties.”

Riazat Butt, Mecca talks stress religious tolerance, The Guardian, June 5, 2008

More than 500 delegates from around the world gathered in the Islamic holy city of Mecca yesterday with the aim of fostering better relations between Muslims and followers of other faiths. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia opened the three-day conference in Al-Safah Palace, a stones throw from the Grand Mosque, by stressing the need for better understanding and cooperation between monotheistic religions.

The king urged his audience to promote the true message of Islam and said the Islamic world faced great difficulties in the form of extremists whose “aggressions and excessiveness” targeted the tolerance of the religion.

The event, the biannual meeting of the Muslim World League, a non-governmental organisation engaged in the propagation of Islam, has been described as an interfaith conference, although its location makes it strictly off-limits to non-Muslims. It is understood that Abdullah seeks greater unity among different Islamic schools of thought, so that summits with other religions can take place more easily. The king held talks in November with Pope Benedict XVI and in March announced plans to host a meeting between the three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam – an initiative welcomed by the president of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder.

Heba Saleh, Pleas for condemned Saudi ‘witch’, BBC, February 14, 2008

Human Rights Watch has appealed to Saudi Arabia to halt the execution of a woman convicted of witchcraft.

In a letter to King Abdullah, the rights group described the trial and conviction of Fawza Falih as a miscarriage of justice.

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.

‘Undefined’ crime

The US-based group is asking the Saudi ruler to void Ms Falih’s conviction and to bring charges against the religious police who detained her and are alleged to have mistreated her.

Its letter to King Abdullah says the woman was tried for the undefined crime of witchcraft and that her conviction was on the basis of the written statements of witnesses who said that she had bewitched them.

Human Rights Watch says the trial failed to meet the safeguards in the Saudi justice system.

The confession which the defendant was forced to fingerprint was not even read out to her, the group says.

Katherine Zoepf, Pardon Reported for Saudi Rape Victim – New York Times, December 17, 2007

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — King Abdullah has pardoned a woman who was sentenced to 200 lashes after pressing charges against seven men who raped her, a Saudi newspaper reported Monday.

There was no immediate confirmation from the Ministry of Justice or the Ministry of Information, but the newspaper, Al Jazirah, is close to the religious establishment that controls the Justice Ministry, Reuters reported.

The case has provoked a rare and angry public debate in Saudi Arabia, leading to renewed calls for reform of the Saudi judicial system.

The rape took place a year and a half ago in Qatif, a small Shiite town in the Eastern Province, center of the Saudi Arabia’s oil industry. The woman, who has been publicly identified only as the “Qatif girl,” said she met a former boyfriend to retrieve a photograph of herself. They were sitting in a car together when seven men attacked, raping them both.

Saudi gang rape sentence ‘unjust’, BBC, November 21, 2007

A lawyer for a gang-rape victim in Saudi Arabia who was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail says the punishment contravenes Islamic law.

The woman was initially punished for violating laws on segregation of the sexes – she was in an unrelated man’s car at the time of the attack.

When she appealed, judges doubled her sentence, saying she had been trying to use the media to influence them.

Her lawyer has been suspended from the case and faces a disciplinary session.