News from the 13th Century.

[mongers]

Saudi Arabia beheads woman for 'sorcery'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16150381

Saudi woman executed for 'witchcraft and sorcery'

A Saudi woman has been executed for practising "witchcraft and sorcery", the country's interior ministry says.

A statement published by the state news agency said Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser was beheaded on Monday in the northern province of Jawf.

The ministry gave no further details of the charges which the woman faced.

The woman was the second person to be executed for witchcraft in Saudi Arabia this year. A Sudanese man was executed in September.
'Threat to Islam'

BBC regionalist analyst Sebastian Usher says the interior ministry stated that the verdict against Ms Nasser was upheld by Saudi Arabia's highest courts, but it did not give specific details of the charges.

The London-based newspaper, al-Hayat, quoted a member of the religious police as saying that she was in her 60s and had tricked people into giving her money, claiming that she could cure their illnesses.

Our correspondent said she was arrested in April 2009.

But the human rights group Amnesty International, which has campaigned for Saudis previously sentenced to death on sorcery charges, said it had never heard of her case until now, he adds.

A Sudanese man was executed in September on similar charges, despite calls led by Amnesty for his release.

In 2007, an Egyptian national was beheaded for allegedly casting spells to try to separate a married couple.

Last year, a Lebanese man facing the death penalty on charges of sorcery, relating to a fortune-telling television programme he presented, was freed after the Saudi Supreme Court decreed that his actions had not harmed anyone.

Amnesty says that Saudi Arabia does not actually define sorcery as a capital offence. However, some of its conservative clerics have urged the strongest possible punishments against fortune-tellers and faith healers as a threat to Islam.

[JonasSalk]

Sorcery doesn't exist, so they've murdered this woman for absolutely nothing.

[HVC]

i read another article where it made it sound like they executed her for fraud, not witch craft. still an over reaction.

[Razgovory]

Well that's one way to deal with Wiccans.

[Razgovory]

Sorcery doesn't exist, so they've murdered this woman for absolutely nothing.

Nothing gets past you, huh?

[Ed Anger]

Well that's one way to deal with Wiccans.

Now if we could do that to Dawkins fans.

[garbon]

Sorcery doesn't exist, so they've murdered this woman for absolutely nothing.

I wonder what you'll be saying when someone causes your testicles to shrink.

[Capetan Mihali]

I wonder what you'll be saying when someone causes your testicles to shrink.

"Thanks for the 'roids man, my lats are ripped!" ?

[Malthus]

I wonder what you'll be saying when someone causes your testicles to shrink.

"Thanks for the 'roids man, my lats are ripped!" ?

[PDH]

To be fair, the thread title should be "news from the 15th century"

[mongers]

To be fair, the thread title should be "news from the 15th century"

No I went for 13th, because 15th/16th would be too near to when the English went from having witchcraft as an evil crime to it being described as just fraud and punishable as such;  I don't think the Saudis are anywhere near that legislative progress. 

[JonasSalk]

Nothing gets past you, huh?

Says the genius who doesn't understand basic sociological studies. Is there a reason why you post, Raz? Medicine cabinet run out?

[Josquius]

Sorcery doesn't exist, so they've murdered this woman for absolutely nothing.

Poppycock. They've been killing sorcerers for centuries and thus remain safe from magic.
The system works.

[JonasSalk]

Poppycock. They've been killing sorcerers for centuries and thus remain safe from magic.
The system works.

I dunno, my testicles keep getting smaller every year. I think that gypsy who cursed me for running his daughter over when I was 19 needs to be the next target of the Saudis.

[Viking]

To be fair, the thread title should be "news from the 15th century"

actually 21st, the NIV update for 2011 still has

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+22&version=NIV

18 "Do not allow a sorceress to live.

and the newest KJV

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2022&version=KJ21

18"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

It's just that when the muslims read their book they take it seriously.