The latest public executions in Saudi Arabia. Death penalties in Saudi Arabia

Are executions used in the modern world? Saudi Arabia currently has the most brutal punishment system on earth for crimes.

What penalties apply?

The Criminal Code, as well as the state constitution, dictate Sharia law. This country is the only one in the world that still practices torture, public lashing, and execution by hanging or beheading. Public executions in Saudi Arabia shock Europeans, but for the local population it is a common occurrence.

The official profession here is “executioner”. He has the status of a civil servant.

In addition to cutting off the head, it is used to death, as well as execution. There are even crucifixions of bodies without heads.

How to execute people in Saudi Arabia

The moment of punishment is a whole ceremony. These customs have reached the 21st century in a slightly modified form from the Middle Ages.

All executions in Saudi Arabia are carried out after lunchtime prayers in the main square. The area is cleared by police of cars and residents.

A person sentenced to execution in Saudi Arabia is brought to his knees while blindfolded or with a bag over his head. The police announce the decision and allow the execution of the sentence to begin. The executioner receives the sword from the officer's hands. He approaches the criminal from behind and, before cutting off his head, swings his sword a number of times. To quickly stop the flow of blood, a medical officer is present at the execution site each time.

The body of a criminal without a head is buried without a coffin and without a gravestone, usually immediately after the execution of the sentence. Now you know what executions are like in Saudi Arabia. Photos clearly demonstrate how this act is carried out.

Equality

In the early 90s, such punishment was applied only to members of the stronger sex, but today it happens quite often in Saudi Arabia. In this area there is equality between the sexes. By the beginning of 2007, 42 women had been executed.

Why don't they forgive here?

Crimes punishable in Saudi Arabia:

• premeditated murder;
• homosexuality;
• adultery;
• rape;
• treason;
• smuggling, sale, possession and use of drugs;
• terrorism or call for terrorism.

Instead of execution

In Saudi Arabia, the punishment is to inflict on the criminal the same injuries that he “awarded” the victim. Based on this, victims of crimes can demand that the perpetrator be inflicted with the same injury that was received from him as a result of the attack.

Typical case

Several years ago, during a fight, one of the participants, Abdul-Aziz Mutairi, was stabbed from behind and remained paralyzed for life. The culprit was caught and sentenced to two years in prison. But after six months he was granted an amnesty and was released.

Abdul appealed to the court with a request to convict his offender; according to the laws, a decision was made to turn to doctors to turn the culprit into a disabled person. However, the doctors do not agree to harm the patient, since they took the Hippocratic oath.

More examples

According to one news portal, the death penalty was recently carried out in Saudi Arabia against a pedophile and murderer. First, he was publicly raped, then his head was cut off, and then his body was crucified on a cross and put up for mockery by everyone present.

Such a justly harsh execution overtook the local store owner. He was found guilty of the particularly brutal murder of a child and his father. According to the case materials, the man stole the child, raped him and strangled him using a rope. And when his father arrived, he killed him using a knife.

Plus, he was exposed in the rape of five boys, one of whom fled into the desert after the incident and died there. They managed to find the pervert and murderer with the help of an 8-year-old boy, who became one of his victims. During the arrest, the suspect resisted, attacking the police with a knife and trying to cut them.

Another criminal was convicted of homosexuality and possession of a whole set of pornographic films. This is considered a serious crime in this country. You can find and read a huge number of these cases, in addition, there are many different videos on this topic on the Internet. The recordings show in great detail how the death penalty takes place in Saudi Arabia. But not everyone can watch it from start to finish.

An eye for an eye, literally.

About eleven years ago, an Egyptian worker was actually blinded as a punishment. This sentence was imposed because a foreigner poured acid into another person's face, causing the victim to go blind. The victim did not want to accept financial assistance in the form of 87,000 pounds sterling and insisted on revenge according to Sharia law. In 2008, the court sentenced the perpetrator to blinding himself with acid.

Statistics

Death penalties in Saudi Arabia are breaking all records. Human rights advocates highlight the fact that most often this punishment is used in relation to emigrants and poor local residents. Just in 2014, 84 people were sentenced to death. Based on information from the ministry, 56 people were sentenced to death in the first three months of 2015. If the pace is not slowed down, the number of people sentenced could reach 200 or more by the end of this year. Compared to other years, in which figures ranged from 70 to 80 executions, the number is catastrophically high.

"Children, don't go for a walk in Africa..."

The hardest thing is for emigrants, because the language barrier makes the process of justification almost impossible. Ordinary workers who come from poor countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and Yemen do not know Arabic or speak it very poorly. They account for up to 40% of all executions in Saudi Arabia.

Most observers note that in relation to visitors, the court executes decisions with a finding of guilt much more often than in relation to the indigenous residents of this country. It is also worth noting that emigrants cannot afford to pay for the services of local lawyers.

Differences from generally accepted norms

Justice in Saudi Arabia does not meet global fair trial standards. The actual trials take place in secrecy and with a minimum number of participants. The accused can be found guilty even without sufficient evidence, based on the confessions of the suspect himself, which are often extracted through torture during the investigation. A verdict of “guilty” can only be reached based on the testimony of third parties. Although if deception is revealed, false witnesses will also be executed. It happens that relatives are not informed in advance about the execution sentence.

The death penalty in Saudi Arabia can be applied to those crimes that are not particularly serious according to international law. These include: betrayal of one of the spouses, robbery with a weapon, rape and practice of magic.

Paradox or pattern

Many countries agree that the death penalty violates the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that it should be abolished everywhere, that man has no right to carry out God’s judgment.

In response to this, I would like to say that, according to the same statistics, the lowest crime rate is in Saudi Arabia: it is safe to wander the streets at night here, theft or rape is a very rare case. Europeans can only dream about this.

This text is one of them. In Saudi Arabia, executions occur frequently and in large numbers. Sexual contact outside of marriage or at least a hint of it, atheism, conversion from Islam to another religion, homosexuality, witchcraft, gambling - this is an incomplete list of crimes for which in the Wahhabi kingdom you can get a thousand lashes, ten years in prison or even lose your head . And despite the indignation of the international community, Riyadh is not going to soften its legal system.

Law in Saudi Arabia

This is understandable: Saudi Arabia is a theocratic monarchy, where the entire justice system is built on a religious foundation. The dominant religion is Islam, the dominant confession is Sunnism, the dominant religious movement is Wahhabism. Therefore, in Saudi Arabia, as in the Islamic State, with which the kingdom is officially at war, Sharia law applies.

It is not surprising that Saudi justice differs markedly from the West: a simple oath is often enough to charge or acquit, a lawyer is often considered an unnecessary luxury, executions of minors and the mentally ill are allowed, no difference is made (at least formally) between a citizen of the kingdom and a foreigner when sentencing verdict (in particular, among those executed on January 2 were citizens of Chad and Egypt).

According to Sharia, a judge can impose three types of punishments: hadd (for crimes against morality and public order - drunkenness, gambling, slander, debauchery), qisas (tit-for-tat punishments imposed for murder and grievous bodily harm) and tazir - punishments for edification for violations of public order, such as homosexuality, adultery, theft in the market, disobedience to authorities, breaking the fast, and the like.

Hadd, as a rule, involves public lashings, qisas allows you to pay for the damage done with money (diya), but tazir can vary widely - from an edifying conversation to chopping off the head followed by crucifixion.

Healing Lash

Most often, the punishment of lashes comes to the attention of foreign media. Although it is spread throughout almost the entire Muslim world, Saudi Arabia stands out noticeably from the general background. There they hit more and more often. There are no strict rules: the Sharia judge himself decides how many lashes the offender deserves.

The sad record belongs to the Egyptian Muhammad Ali al-Sayyid: in 1990 he was sentenced to four thousand blows. Riyadh explained to the indignant world community that in fact al-Sayyid was shown mercy: the Egyptian was accused of robbery, and his hand was to be cut off. And they limited themselves to flogging.

Four thousand lashes - is that a lot or a little? Here is what Filipino Donato Lama, sentenced to 75 lashes for publicly practicing Christianity in 1999, said: “They took me to the place of flogging and tied me to a pole. His hands were handcuffed and his legs were also shackled. I was wearing a T-shirt and jogging pants. The whip is one and a half meters long, its end is weighted with a piece of lead. Several blows landed on my hips and back. I would have fallen when the whip hit my legs, but the guard held me and the execution continued. It’s amazing: I took 70 blows and was still alive. Blood was flowing down my back, I was screaming."

Another type of public punishment is beheading. It is performed in front of a large crowd of people. As a rule, after execution, the body of the criminal is put on public display for educational purposes - most often crucified.

The fight for sobriety

The most common crime for which the Saudi government punishes foreigners is violating the strict Sharia ban on alcohol. The year before last, kingdom police arrested 73-year-old Briton Carl Andrey in the city of Jeddah after finding a bottle of homemade wine in his possession. Although Andry had cancer and asthma, he served more than a year in prison awaiting his sentence of 350 lashes. Only after the British government, under pressure from Andry’s relatives and the newly elected leader of the opposition Labor Party Jeremy Corbyn, terminated the contract with Riyadh for training prison staff and threatened a further deterioration in relations, did the Saudis back down and let the convict go home.

He was much luckier than his compatriot John Kelly: in 1985, he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and 250 lashes - 50 at a time with two-month breaks for rehabilitation, as well as a fine of 17 thousand pounds sterling. The indignation of the British government was so sharp that for the next thirty years Riyadh preferred to turn a blind eye to the moonshine brewing that many British expats were involved in, and in case of unpleasant incidents simply expelled them - like Peter and Ann Goldsmith, caught making homemade wine and importing to the land of whiskey.

But what is allowed to Jupiter, that is, Britain - one of the key Saudi allies since the formation of the Wahhabi kingdom - is not allowed to the bull. In September 1999, two bars of chocolate with alcoholic filling were found in the luggage of Filipino Faustino Salazar. Despite the detainee's assurances that he bought the chocolate from a duty free shop at the Bahrain airport, he was sentenced to 75 lashes and four months in prison.

Country of one religion

However, religious crimes are considered much more serious. The worst thing is apostasy, which means not only conversion to another faith, but also atheism. Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayyad is now in prison, facing execution: according to Sharia judges, in one of his books he promoted atheism.

Moreover, more than seven percent of the population of Saudi Arabia are non-Muslims. Most of the Catholic migrant workers are from the Philippines, but there are also representatives of other faiths: Protestants from Europe, Orthodox Christians from Egypt, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Public practice of Christianity in the kingdom is prohibited, and it is also prohibited to keep non-Islamic religious objects, including the Bible, crucifixes, and images of saints. Christians and representatives of other religions can only pray at home. Compliance with the law is monitored by a special religious police - the Sharia Guard.

Photo: Theodore Shoebat/LifeLeak

Often Christian foreigners find themselves hostage to the international situation. After information leaked to the press about the desecration of the Koran by the American military at the Guantanamo Bay base in 2004, the Shariah guards carried out a series of raids on Christian apartments, raiding an underground Catholic church in one of them and arresting more than 40 Pakistani Christians, as well as several Catholics. Filipinos. Needless to say, not a single American was detained: Washington is also a key ally of Riyadh, with whom the Saudis do not want to quarrel. It is much easier to take out anger on defenseless Filipinos or Pakistani Christians, considered pariahs in their home country.

Sex and prison

An important field of activity of Sharia courts is the prevention of debauchery and adultery. Moreover, these concepts are interpreted very broadly.

In October 2009, Saudi Airlines employee Mazen Abdul-Jawad inadvertently appeared on Lebanese television, talking about his sex life and dating girls. Upon returning to his homeland, five years in prison and a thousand lashes awaited him.

The most egregious case is what has come to be known as the Qatif rape. In 2006, seven men attacked a young Shia woman and her companion while they were sitting in a car, abducted and raped both. The perpetrators received several hundred lashes and prison sentences, but rape victims were also sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes for being in a car together without being spouses.

Despite enormous pressure from the conservative masses of the population and the Sharia guard, the victim’s husband did not abandon her, saying that the woman was not guilty of anything. A wave of indignation arose in the world. Even future President Barack Obama, then a senator, called on the State Department to do everything possible to prevent victims from being punished. In the end, King Abdullah made a Solomonic decision: he overturned the victim's sentence, citing considerations of the public good, but emphasized that the judge acted absolutely fairly.

"Paradise for Gays"

Homosexuality in Saudi Arabia is also severely punished - you can lose your head for same-sex sex. However, judges often impose a fairly lenient punishment, especially when compared with sentences under other articles. Thus, one of the inhabitants of the kingdom, whose name has not been disclosed, received three years in prison and 450 lashes: he was accused of making appointments with other men using the microblog on Twitter, and was convicted of “indulging in vice and homosexuality.”

Perhaps one reason is that homosexuality is widespread in Saudi Arabia. A paradoxical situation has developed in the kingdom: much more attention is paid to the fight against extramarital sex and relationships between men and women than to the fight against same-sex sex. There is an unspoken pact between gays and the Saudi authorities: the LGBT community demonstrates respect for the norms of Wahhabism, in exchange for this the authorities turn a blind eye to the “private life” of these subjects. Sometimes excesses happen, but on the whole the agreement is respected. As one of the Saudi gays, 42-year-old American expat Radwan, admitted in an interview with The Atlantic, in large cities like Jeddah and Riyadh there is a large LGBT community, and many gays openly meet in cafes, make dates on the streets and on the Internet . Another homosexual, Syrian Talal, who has been living in the kingdom for 15 years, even called Riyadh “a paradise for gays.”

In general, Saudi homosexuality bears little resemblance to European homosexuality. The attitude towards same-sex relationships in the kingdom is somewhat similar to the attitude towards it in Russian prisons. It is believed that only the passive partner’s reputation suffers, while the active one, on the contrary, emphasizes his masculinity and does not seem to be a homosexual.

Strict Sharia laws, which prohibit sexual contact between unmarried men and women, literally push young men to look for a partner among their comrades. This has led to homosexuality, whether consensual or in the form of rape, becoming a long-standing problem in Saudi Arabia's gender-segregated educational institutions.

War with sorcerers

While the Saudi authorities turn a blind eye to homosexuality, they fight witchcraft decisively and uncompromisingly. For him, the sentence is usually the same: beheading and subsequent crucifixion - as a warning to others.

As a rule, vigilant neighbors or subordinates report that a particular citizen of the kingdom is practicing forbidden magic. For these purposes, a special hotline has been organized: anyone can report a magical crime to the anti-witchcraft service. When arresting, additional security measures are taken: it is reliably known that some sorcerers enter into an agreement with genies, so they can fly through the air.

The fight against sorcerers is not limited to the borders of the kingdom. In 2010, Lebanese predictor Ali Hussein Sibat lost his head: during an appearance on a TV show, he predicted the future for those who wished and gave advice to viewers. Saudi intelligence services followed him for several years and arrested him when Sibat unwisely decided to perform the Hajj.

Most often, however, the victims of vigilant fighters against magic are migrant workers, whose status is obviously lower than that of native Saudis and who cannot defend themselves. Thus, in May 2013, two maids from Southeast Asia were sentenced to a thousand lashes and ten years in prison for magical harm caused to their owners. Considering the usual sentence for witchcraft, we can assume that the women got off lightly.

All this Saudi specificity causes natural protests in the West. Citizens of Europe and other civilized countries often wonder why Washington and London, citing moral considerations, classify Tehran as an “axis of evil” due to the fact that the death penalty is widely practiced there, but turn a blind eye to much more severe sentences that ruled by the Sharia courts of the Wahhabi kingdom?

A large, oil-rich Middle Eastern country that borders Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq and Jordan, Saudi Arabia is the most influential power on the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi Arabia is the “Land of the Two Holy Mosques,” home to the oldest Islamic cities, and one of the few states with an absolute monarchy. She is the only one with access to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The kingdom is, of course, beautiful, but its traditions of treating women and the use of the death penalty are controversial issues for the whole world. Saudi Arabia also leads the leadership of the OPEC oil cartel, which has enormous influence over the global oil market.
The Kingdom once armed itself into the Yemeni civil war, supporting the government against Houthi militants. But outside help does not exclude the presence of its own problems: falling oil prices, internal political disagreements and attempts to diversify the economy. In Western understanding, this country is an anachronism, where a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam is absolute law, and where women are prohibited from driving. But on the other hand, here are the roots of great history and culture, to which millions of Muslims flock annually for the pilgrimage Hajj and huge oil fields.
Here are 15 surprising facts about the oil Kingdom of Saudi Arabia:
15. NO ELECTIONS, PARLIAMENT, POLITICAL PARTIES AND DISSENT

There is an absolute monarchy, no national elections, no political parties, no representative parliament, and only a symbolic advisory body, the Majlis al-Shura, or Consultative Assembly, which has no power to make laws or enforce them. This open disregard for democratic norms has been going on for decades. Along with brutal dictatorships, Saudi Arabia regularly receives the lowest civil and political freedom scores from think tanks like Freedom House.
There is no constitution, although the charter known as the Basic Law of Saudi Arabia, adopted by royal decree in 1992, obliges the monarch to rule by observing Sharia law and the Koran instead of the constitution. Criticism and dissent are strictly prohibited: activists are regularly jailed and given harsh punishments. Examples: Abd al-Karim, who demanded a transition to a constitutional monarchy and received 8 years in prison for this, and blogger Raif Badawi, who received 1000 lashes for calling for freedom of speech.
14. HOUSE OF THE HOLY ISLAMIC CITIES


Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam and the holiest religious sites - Mecca and Medina. The 13-meter-tall Kaaba is the holiest place in the Great Mosque of Mecca, Islam's holiest mosque. All Muslims direct their prayers to her. One of the five pillars of Islam requires that every Muslim make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in his life, if he has the strength and finances to do so. Approximately two million people visit Saudi Arabia every year.
As you can imagine, large concentrations of pilgrims in one place can lead to serious problems, such as the stampede in 2015, which reportedly killed and injured more than 2,000 people.
13. THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH EXECUTIONERS FOR ALL EXECUTIONS


The death penalty is widespread in Saudi Arabia. In 2015, the authorities held them every other day. The country ranks 4th in the world in the number of executions, carried out for reasons such as adultery and rejection of Islam. In most cases, execution is carried out by cutting off the head with a scimitar. The kingdom may be the only country suffering from a shortage of executioners: in early 2013, the government considered changing its execution method due to a lack of executioners. The method of execution is considered priority.
In addition, Saudi Arabia is one of only four countries that still has public executions. Diera Square in the center of Riyadh is a famous site for public beheadings, known locally as “chop-chop square.”
12. HUGE OIL RESERVES


What words come to mind when you think of Saudi Arabia? Since the Kingdom is the largest exporter of petroleum raw materials, its name is synonymous with everything related to oil and gas. More than half of GDP comes from profits from the oil industry. Oil reserves are simply unreal: the largest Gavar field can accommodate 4,770,897 Olympic swimming pools. It is estimated that even after decades of pumping oil for export, there are still about 75 billion barrels left.
Saudi Arabia has 22 percent of the world's oil reserves, only Venezuela has more. In 1960, the Kingdom was a founding member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Due to the large oil industry, 30 percent of the country's population are foreign workers.
11. THE LARGEST COUNTRY WITHOUT A SINGLE RIVER


Saudi Arabia's area of ​​more than 2 million square kilometers puts it 13th in the world in terms of territorial size. More than 95 percent are deserts and semi-deserts, many of which are the largest on earth (Great Nefud in the north and Rub al-Khali in the south). Due to the abundance of deserts and an average temperature of about 45 degrees Celsius, Saudi Arabia does not have rivers or lakes, but there are underground reservoirs.
It is the largest country in the Middle East, makes up most of the Arabian Peninsula (about a quarter of the United States) and is the world's largest land area without a single river on the map.
10. THE ROYAL FAMILY IS WORTH $14 TRILLION


As heads of the House of Saud, the monarch and thousands of his royal relatives occupy all important positions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The royal power of this country would have been the object of desire of any medieval court; King Salman's net worth is estimated at more than $17 billion, and more than 7,000 family princes (some estimates put the royalty at around 30,000) hold important positions while more talented candidates are left out due to the wrong surname.
The royal family receives huge profits from the state oil monopoly, estimated at about 270 billion a year.
In fact, if you put the entire wealth of the Saudi royal family into a single sum, it would be about $14 trillion.
9. SEVERE PUNISHMENTS

We've already mentioned the harsh laws of Saudi Arabia, what about the punishments? It turns out they are no better: the legal system uses the same ultra-conservative and traditionalist Hanbali school as the basis of jurisprudence as the terrorist Islamic State. The trial takes place solely on the basis of a particular interpretation of Islamic law.
Punishments by the authorities included cutting off hands and feet for theft, lashing and stoning for adultery and other acts, and beheading for rebellion, political crimes, drug smuggling and witchcraft. Death sentences are also imposed for blasphemy, homosexuality and violent robbery. Saudi Arabia has failed to respond to ever-increasing pressure to liberalize its legal system and has consistently resorted to punishment and death penalties.
8. DANGEROUS QUIRK “SIDEWALK SKIING”


This is quite a daring entertainment, fraught with a “fun” danger. The trick consists of driving on two wheels on one side of a car along the roadway, during which a person climbs onto the car and stands on top of it throughout the movement. Fans of this entertainment treat it with purely sporting interest, but this is one of the most useless and dangerous inventions that humanity has ever produced.
In one video, a team of similar “stuntmen” gets out of a car to change its tire. All this happens on the go. To say "Don't try this at home" is an understatement.
7. TENT SETTLEMENT


Initially, pilgrims took tents with them on their journey and set them up on the plains of Mina. In the 1990s, the Saudi Arabian government made housing easier for religious tourists by establishing a campsite with regular cotton tents. But in 1997, a fire occurred in the settlement, which claimed the lives of 350 pilgrims. After which a new camp with fire-resistant awnings was organized. The city of Mina has 100,000 neat fireproof tents with air conditioning, kitchen and bathroom. In essence, this is a modern residential complex.
The state-of-the-art tents can accommodate approximately 3 million people. About 5 days a year they are occupied by pilgrims, and the rest of the time they are empty. The kingdom received a barrage of global criticism after refusing to accommodate Syrian refugees there.
6. PROBLEM WITH WOMEN'S LINGERIE


Women are effectively prohibited from working outside the home. This causes awkward situations, such as when the salesperson in the lingerie department is a man. Confused women, who could not make intimate purchases because of this, made an attempt to change the law. They were listened to, and in 2012 a decree was issued banning men from working in women's underwear stores.
But the decree contradicted Sharia, which is why about a hundred stores ignored the innovation. A few months after the law came into force, they were closed. The decree is still in effect, and various inspections regularly monitor its implementation. If a male seller is found, the stores are threatened with closure.
5. THEY HAVE “MAGIC POLICE”


In Saudi Arabia, everything that is directly or indirectly related to magic, witchcraft and sorcery is prohibited. It is considered a serious crime and people have even been beheaded for allegedly practicing magic. The government takes the magical threat so seriously that it has even banned the Harry Potter books and created special anti-witch police units. Created in 2009, the anti-witchcraft group is part of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Unrest of the Saudi Religious Police. They are tasked with apprehending sorcerers and preventing their spells. Since 2009, more than 500 people have been prosecuted for practicing magic.
People allegedly whispering spells, performing rituals, or caught with talismans can get into very serious trouble. But the issue of witchcraft is very subtle, because the original and generally accepted characteristics of witches are as follows: they have a broom on which they fly. Saudi Arabia's legal code leaves the decision to the judge, who must determine whether a person is guilty of witchcraft and whether he will receive the death penalty.
4. IN THE FUTURE, THE COUNTRY WITH THE TALLEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD


The most long-awaited event for all the people of the globe is the construction of the “Tallest building in the world.” This position is currently held by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. In 2018, the Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia, also known as the Royal Tower, will proudly take the title. It will be the first building in history to reach a kilometer in height and will be the glittering centerpiece of Saudi Arabia's new coastal city. To imagine what it will look like, imagine the World Trade Center in New York (541 meters) - this is slightly more than half the estimated height of the Queen's Tower.
Once completed, the tower will contain a hotel, an observatory, offices and obscenely expensive penthouses. Preliminary cost: $1.2 billion. Now the project is called “the limit of engineering possibilities.”
3. WOMEN'S RIGHTS ARE EVEN WORSE THAN YOU THOUGHT


Before traveling to Saudi Arabia, it is strongly recommended that you familiarize yourself with its laws. Women's rights in the Gulf have been the subject of social controversy recently. It is now the last country on earth where women are not allowed to drive. This fact attracts media representatives everywhere. This is just the tip of the iceberg; without a man's permission, women are prohibited from leaving the house, making purchases, opening a bank account, getting a job, going to school, acting in a legal or other official capacity, or consenting to surgery.
Until recently, women could not vote or sit on the House's advisory chamber, making Saudi Arabia the last country to give women the right to vote. Before his death, King Abdullah allocated a fifth of the council chamber to women and allowed them to vote, but this was a largely symbolic gesture that had little impact on the lives of Saudi women.
2. ONE OF THE LARGEST MILITARY BUDGETS IN THE WORLD


For a country of 33 million people, Saudi Arabia's military spending is enormous. The kingdom typically ranks 4th in the world in terms of military spending, behind the United States, China and Russia, and all superpowers have populations and territory many times larger. In 2015, it ranked 3rd, raising its budget from $80 billion to more than $87 billion.
By the way, Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries that has one of the most advanced tanks in the world - the M1 Abrams. There are about several hundred of them. In 2010-2014, the Kingdom was the world's second largest arms importer.
1. IMPORT OF SAND AND CAMELS FROM AUSTRALIA


Yes, that's right: the sand country actually buys its sand from Australia. For what? It turns out that not a single type of Saudi sand is suitable for construction. To construct buildings, you need special alluvial sand without silica (it often creates a lot of dust and difficulties for workers when sandblasting). The Kingdom receives sand with the necessary properties wholesale from Australia.
Now about camels. In Saudi Arabia, they are used to transport people and goods, and sometimes for racing. Australia is happy to export its camels, which are wild and vicious in nature. Ironically, camels were first imported to Australia from Arabia, India and Afghanistan in the 19th century.

On January 2, Saudi Arabia executed 47 people at once on charges of promoting extremist ideology, terrorist activities, and participation in conspiracies, among whom was the Shiite preacher Nimr al-Nimr. This caused a wave of indignation around the world and, above all, in Shiite Iran, where protesters broke into the Saudi embassy building and tried to start a fire there. As a result, this led to a severance of diplomatic relations between Riyadh and Tehran.

Almost simultaneously, the blood of those executed was shed on the territory controlled by the Islamic State (IS, ISIS, Arabic version of the name - Daesh) banned in Russia. His militants published a video in which they killed five British citizens accused of espionage.

These two incidents are a reason to once again think about the fundamental kinship of two Sharia entities, Saudi Arabia and the Islamic State, one of which enjoys public patronage from the collective West.

Scenes from the Middle Ages

A typical execution scene in Saudi Arabia looks like this. In front of us are many people in white robes and red turbans-gutras. The executioner raises a sharpened saber and with a slight movement chops off the condemned man's head. The head falls on the asphalt, the executioner moves away a few steps so as not to be splashed with gushing blood. After this we see cars passing by. According to Sharia law, the execution must be public and devout Muslims must observe it so that the crimes are not repeated in the future. But nowadays there are few people who want to watch the execution, so the executioners simply block the busy intersection. Drivers of stopped cars are forced to watch the execution. Once the execution is over, a fire truck quickly clears the intersection and traffic is reopened. This is Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Sharia law has been in effect in this land for hundreds of years.

Here are the impressions of a similar spectacle from a Time newspaper photographer: “When the execution began, the rebels grabbed him by the throat. He began to resist. Three or four rebels pinned him to the ground. The man tried to protect his throat with his hands, which were still tied. He struggled, but the rebels were stronger and they cut his throat. They raised his severed head into the air. People around began to wave their weapons and cheer. Everyone was happy that the execution took place. This scene was like something out of the Middle Ages, something you usually read about in history books. The war in Syria has reached the point where a person can be mercilessly killed in front of hundreds of people who enjoy the spectacle.” This is already the city of Kefergan, a territory controlled by the Islamic State.

Here's another execution. Here, apparently, cutting off the head is not enough. The Sri Lankans convicted of murder were first beheaded and then their bodies were crucified on crosses. Their corpses will be displayed for public desecration - so that others will be embarrassed. Are they really radicals from IS again? No, this is the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

How to eat a woman

And it was necessary! A 50-year-old Indian woman who worked as a maid in Saudi Arabia complained of ill-treatment and delayed wages. After the maid tried to escape, her employer tied her to the balcony of her own sari and cut off her right hand. The woman was taken to a Riyadh hospital by neighbors. Representatives of the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the incident “a terrible and condemnable incident.” Despite this, the Saudis have not yet been punished.

A woman in Saudi Arabia is generally a creature without rights. For example, in 2014, the country's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Ali allowed cannibalism. Aziz Ali stated literally the following: “If a man is mortally hungry and does not find food at home, he can cut off a fragment of his wife’s body and eat it. A woman should approach this decision with devotion and humility, since she is one with her husband.”

The militants of the Islamic State also decided to implement the advice of Saudi textbooks. In the Iraqi city of Mosul they captured, a man accused of homosexuality was thrown from the roof of a house. Dozens of people came to watch the execution, including children. One of the terrorists announced into the microphone that the man had been sentenced to death. People crowded around his crushed body, although the sight was not for the faint of heart.

A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye

However, IS practices even more brutal methods of killing. Recently, a video of the execution of a 19-year-old Syrian army soldier appeared on the Internet. The fighter was a tank driver. In the video, he walks towards a terrorist tank and falls under its tracks. The car runs over the young fighter, leaving him with only crushed bones and a flattened brain.

Here's another application of the ancient principle of talion (where punishment reproduces the harm done): a captured Jordanian pilot stands in an iron cage. He is wearing bright orange clothes doused with a flammable mixture. A militant in light camouflage sets fire to a path of gasoline with a torch, the fire engulfs the entire cage and the executed man.

But in the Saudi kingdom there are “milder” punishments. Blogger Raifa Badawi was accused of insulting Islam. Badawi discussed religious issues on his blog and criticized the current government. For this, the Sharia state sentenced him to a thousand lashes, a fine of 1 million Saudi riyals and ten years in prison. Probably, out of “philanthropy,” the lashes will be applied gradually: fifty lashes every week.

The death penalty in Saudi Arabia extends to foreigners: on May 6, 2015, five people from East Africa were executed there. They were accused of killing an Indian security guard and stealing his money. The Africans were beheaded, after which their corpses were hung from a helicopter. According to authorities, this should deter others from committing similar crimes.

Crushed hopes

According to Western human rights activists, since January 1985, more than 2.2 thousand people have been executed in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, about half of them are foreigners.

Until the 90s of the last century, women in the kingdom were shot. However, then the authorities decided that... representatives of the fairer sex should also have their heads cut off. To determine religious affiliation, a Saudi visa contains a column about the religion of the foreigner. The country has a religious police (muttawa). Soldiers of the Sharia Guard constantly patrol the streets and public institutions of Saudi cities in order to suppress attempts to violate the canons of Islam. If a violation is detected, the perpetrator is punished - from a fine to beheading.

Amnesty International's report on the death penalty noted that "there were some hopes for human rights reform when King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud took the throne in early 2014, but these have now been completely dashed."

The death penalty is protected at the state level in Saudi Arabia. The president of the Saudi Human Rights Commission, Bandar Al-Aiban, said the kingdom cannot neglect the rights of victims of criminals. A little earlier, the press secretary of the country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, General Mansour Al-Turki, explained the difference between the death sentence carried out in the Islamic State and Saudi practice. “IS does not have any legal mechanism in deciding to execute people,” Al-Turki said.

Was it because of the presence of a “legal mechanism” that Saudi Arabia’s permanent representative to the UN, Faisal Trat, was recently appointed chairman of the advisory group at the UN Human Rights Council?

Who is bad and who is good

Double standards have always been a part of world politics - just recall examples of different interpretations of the right of peoples to self-determination and the principle of territorial integrity. Kosovo Albanians can secede, but Russians in Crimea cannot. Jews are entitled to their own national state, but Kurds are not. Slobodan Milosevic is bad, so we bomb Yugoslavia, and Al Saud sells oil, we shake his hand. With whom I am friends, I forgive, and with whom I am not friends, I bring democracy to him...

However, you need to know when to stop. It’s time for our Western partners to understand that there is no fundamental difference between the Saudi regime and the terrorist IS - and not only in the area of ​​administration of justice. Without waiting for cases of beheadings of people by Islamist fanatics to become a sustainable practice not only in the Middle East, but also in the center of Western capitals - with grateful spectators, legal interpreters and executioners on the payroll.

Execution process

The execution process itself in Saudi Arabia is a whole ceremony, the traditions of which have been preserved and expanded over many hundreds of years.

All executions take place after midday prayers in the central square. The person condemned to death is brought to the place blindfolded. Law enforcement forces clear the area of ​​cars and passers-by, after which a piece of blue cloth or plastic is spread on the ground.

In some cases, execution can be replaced by pardon by agreement of the parties and payment of so-called “blood money” - compensation for the crime committed.

For example, television Islamic preacher Fayhan Al-Gamdi, accused of raping and beating his five-year-old daughter to death, avoided execution by paying blood money and was initially released from custody a few months later, but later, after resonance and indignation in society and the blogosphere, still received a sentence of 8 years and 600 lashes, and authorities announced that they planned to create a 24-hour hotline for reporting child abuse.