Our ally will behead a man for ripping up a Koran and hitting it with his shoe

[kpete]

Man to be beheaded in Saudi Arabia after ripping up a Koran and hitting it with his shoe

A man who posted a video online of himself ripping up a Koran and beating the shredded holy book with a shoe is to be beheaded in Saudi Arabia for renouncing his Muslim faith.

The unnamed prisoner, in his 20s, was given the death sentence by the country’s Sharia courts for the offence of apostasy – abandoning Islam – the Saudi Gazette reported.

Deviation from the nation’s enforced Sunni faith is harshly punished, according to Human Rights Watch.

Public worship by adherents of religions other than Islam is banned and anything deemed an insult to the faith can be treated as a crime.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/man-to-be-beheaded-in-saudi-arabia-after-ripping-up-a-koran-and-hitting-it-with-his-shoe-10067392.html




what will the MSM say about this?
crickets...........

[Buzz Clik]

1. Time to invade?

[onehandle]

3. Never gonna happen, unless they financed a couple of dozen Saudis to fly planes into buildings here...

...wait...

Never gonna happen.

[Buzz Clik]

4. Money. Oil. Oil. Oil

Oil. Oil.

Bingo.

Not that I have any interest in invading...

[leveymg]

8. Time for other types of sanctions?

There's a long, long list of actions that could be sanctioned going back at least two decades. In effect, members of the Saudi and Gulf Royal families and elites have been covertly funding a war against the United States. With the exception of Usama bin Laden, the US Government has rarely if ever acknowledged the involvement of high-worth individuals in this conflict, opting instead to simply liquidate the paid help. Should we continue playing the game by these rules?

[Fred Sanders]

2. America's ally will also apparently consort with another ally to sabotage Iran nuclear talks...how special.

Maybe they could carry out the sentence on the same day they flog the blogger who dared to speak out against the dictatorship?

Just after they send more money to ISIS.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. Wow Fred, that's very different from your initial reaction to the Badawi flogging story.....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014986754

[glasshouses]

5. ROP

[el_bryanto]

6. Pretty awful actions

Reuters has the story as well apparently, and here's a link to the original story. I don't know if there is any appeal or how soon the sentence will be carried out. They also don't give the mans name (or I couldn't find it at any rate).

The Reuters story references Raif Badawi, a Saudi Liberal.

Last year a court in Jeddah sentenced Saudi liberal Raif Badawi to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison for publishing criticism of the kingdom's ruling religious and political elite and calling for reforms in Islam.

The first of 50 of those lashes were carried out in January, but subsequent rounds of flogging have not occurred. Officials have not publicly commented on the case, but insiders say the lashing appears to have been quietly dropped.

So possibly they will quietly imprison this man so as to avoid the embarrassment of executing him? Not sure that's a lot better; the whole situation is terrible.

Bryant

[marym625]

7. Oh it's okay as long as it isn't fanatical Islamic terrorists

This is just fine. We should do this here if anyone disses THE Bible

[nichomachus]

10. Wait. What? But this is a "religion of peace." n/t

[Spider Jerusalem]

11. And the USA executes innocent people on the basis of circumstantial evidence.

But hey, at least we apologise for it, I guess? Mote and beam; once you accept that capital punishment is acceptable for some crimes then you also have to accept that which crimes deserve capital punishment is going to be something dependent on cultural context that varies from one country to another where it's practised. I don't think Saudi Arabia should be executing people for apostasy, or chopping off hands for theft, or stoning women who commit adultery to death, but I also don't think that the USA should be executing people or torturing them with long-term capital punishment and then pretending to have some sort of moral high ground.