Saudis behead woman for practicing witchcraft
Dec 12, 2011
By Michael Winter, USA TODAY
Updated 14m ago
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A Saudi woman in her 60s was beheaded today for being a witch, according to reports out of the desert kingdom.
Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser was executed in the northwest province of Jawf. She was convicted of "practicing witchcraft and sorcery," the interior ministry said in a statement carried by official SPA news agency, AFP says. The country's high court upheld the death penalty.
The BBC writes that 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."
In September, a Sudanese man in Medina was executed for practicing sorcery. He reportedly confessed after being tortured and was tried without a lawyer.
Amnesty International, which has campaigned for a moratorium on executions, called today's beheading "deeply shocking."
"The charges of 'witchcraft and sorcery' are not defined as crimes in Saudi Arabia and to use them to subject someone to the cruel and extreme penalty of execution is truly appalling," Philip Luther Amnesty International's interim Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program, said in a statement.
"While we don't know the details of the acts which the authorities accused Amina of committing, the charge of sorcery has often been used in Saudi Arabia to punish people, generally after unfair trials, for exercising their right to freedom of speech or religion."
The BBC writes that although Saudi Arabia does not actually define sorcery as a capital offense, "some of its conservative clerics have urged the strongest possible punishments against fortune-tellers and faith healers as a threat to Islam."
So far this year, the kingdom has executed 73 people for all capital crimes, compared with 27 in 2010 and 67 in 2009.See photos of: Saudi Arabia
Dec 12, 2011
By Michael Winter, USA TODAY
Updated 14m ago
======================================================
A Saudi woman in her 60s was beheaded today for being a witch, according to reports out of the desert kingdom.
Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser was executed in the northwest province of Jawf. She was convicted of "practicing witchcraft and sorcery," the interior ministry said in a statement carried by official SPA news agency, AFP says. The country's high court upheld the death penalty.
The BBC writes that 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."
In September, a Sudanese man in Medina was executed for practicing sorcery. He reportedly confessed after being tortured and was tried without a lawyer.
Amnesty International, which has campaigned for a moratorium on executions, called today's beheading "deeply shocking."
"The charges of 'witchcraft and sorcery' are not defined as crimes in Saudi Arabia and to use them to subject someone to the cruel and extreme penalty of execution is truly appalling," Philip Luther Amnesty International's interim Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program, said in a statement.
"While we don't know the details of the acts which the authorities accused Amina of committing, the charge of sorcery has often been used in Saudi Arabia to punish people, generally after unfair trials, for exercising their right to freedom of speech or religion."
The BBC writes that although Saudi Arabia does not actually define sorcery as a capital offense, "some of its conservative clerics have urged the strongest possible punishments against fortune-tellers and faith healers as a threat to Islam."
So far this year, the kingdom has executed 73 people for all capital crimes, compared with 27 in 2010 and 67 in 2009.See photos of: Saudi Arabia
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