SAUDI BEHEADING FOR SORCERY “SHOCKING”

SAUDI WOMAN EXECUTED FOR
‘WITCHCRAFT AND SORCERY’

Dubai (Reuters) - Rights group Amnesty International has described as “deeply shocking” Saudi Arabia’s beheading of a woman convicted on charges of “sorcery and witchcraft,” saying it underlined the urgent need to end executions in the kingdom.  Saudi national Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser was executed on Monday in the northern province of al-Jawf after being tried and convicted for practicing sorcery, the interior ministry said, without giving details of the charges.  “The citizen... practiced acts of witchcraft and sorcery,” Saudi newspaper al-Watan cited the interior ministry as saying. “The death sentence was carried out on the accused yesterday (Monday) in the Qurayyat district in al-Jawf region.”  Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy, has no written criminal code, which is instead based on an uncodified form of Islamic sharia law as interpreted by the country’s judges.

“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,” Philip Luther, interim director of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program, said in a statement.  Amnesty said the execution was the second of its kind in recent months. A Sudanese national was beheaded in the Saudi city of Medina in September after being convicted on sorcery charges, according to the London-based group.  Amnesty put at 79 the number of executions in Saudi Arabia so far this year, nearly triple the figure in 2010.

A Saudi woman has been executed for practising “witchcraft and sorcery”.  Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser was beheaded on Monday in the province of Jawf.  The human rights group Amnesty International says that Saudi Arabia does not actually define sorcery as a capital offence. However, some conservative clerics urge the strongest possible punishments against fortune-tellers and faith healers as a threat to Islam.  Laws must be enforced by the king or rulers, but there must be fair correspondence between the nature of the offense and the punishment it deserves.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Let the (king), having fully ascertained the motive, the time and place (of the offence), and having considered the ability (of the criminal to suffer) and the (nature of the) crime, cause punishment to fall on those who deserve it. Unjust punishment destroys reputation among men, and fame (after death), and causes even in the next world the loss of heaven; let him, therefore, beware of (inflicting) it.  A king who punishes those who do not deserve it, and punishes not those who deserve it, brings great infamy on himself and (after death) sinks into hell. Let him punish first by (gentle) admonition, afterwards by (harsh) reproof, thirdly by a fine, after that by corporal chastisement. But when he cannot restrain such (offenders) even by corporal punishment, then let him apply to them even all the four (modes co jointly).

The Laws of Manu
Chapter VIII - Verses 126 - 130
Translated by Georg Bühler
http://hinduism.about.com/library/weekly/extra/bl-lawsofmanu8.htm