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Saudi Arabia Equally Applies Capital Punishment?
By Emad Mekay
CAIRO (IslamOnline) - Among the possible recreational activities Saudis do to pass time on the weekend is to join several hundred other excited people and watch someone's head being chopped off by an executioner wielding a curved sword more than a meter long.
Amnesty International, in its report for the year 2000, said it recorded 103 executions in Saudi Arabia - a country of 21 million - in 1999, although the total number may actually be well greater. This compares to 98 executions in the United States, a country of more than 260 million.
Iaqmet al-Had - executions of the law of God - is an almost weekly spectacle after Friday prayer in Saudi Arabia, and is a ceremonial occasion in the court of the main mosque or in a square in front of the provincial governor's palace.
Spectators throng feverishly to watch the whipping of an adulterer, the amputation of a thief's hand or the beheading of a murderer, a rapist or drug trafficker.
Westerners watch anxiously trying to hide their cameras, waiting for the right moment to take pictures of something they can only see in Hollywood movies.
In capital punishment cases, according to eyewitnesses, a person to be executed emerges from a van, usually showing no fear because drugs have been administered to lessen resistance. Hands tied behind the back, the convicted is ordered to squat.
Once in this position, his head is cut off swiftly so as to fall between his legs. This is meant to give the convict a quick end to his misery. Blood gushes into a drain covered by a metal grate. A doctor is present to certify death.
Cleaners rush in to hose down the area and the body is wrapped in plastic and put back in the van. The news of the death is then broadcast on national radio and TV.
Those convicted of crimes as serious as serial killings or rape are given a slower death: the expert swordsman chops the back of the convict's neck at three strikes, rather than one, quickly without fully severing the head.
In cases regarded as even more serious, criminals are crucified for 24 hours. This is done with the purpose of deterring others. In 1993, two Saudi Arabian nationals and an Egyptian were crucified and executed in the city of Haql for, after raping the wife, the murder of a man, his wife and four children.
The London-based Amnesty International group has labeled this method of execution as "particularly violent for all those involved - the victims, their families and onlookers."
But many of the onlookers go to shake the hand of the executioner afterwards because he gets blessed for carrying out the orders of God.
An Egyptian expatriate in Saudi Arabia said: "It is a strange feeling when you are watching. You think this is a good deterrent for anyone thinking about a murder. It's justice being done."
The view in Saudi Arabia is that all murderers should be killed unless the closest male relative of the victim accepts Deya, or blood money.
Women are subject to capital punishment, but often by firing squad. Many Saudis argue that this is merciful, since it brings deaths more quickly than the electric chair or gas chamber.
Islamic Sharia' law specifies the death penalty as a deterrent to crime, but strongly encourages forgiveness, although killing is a major sin. The Qur'an, Muslims' holy book, teaches that the killing of one man is like that of killing all humankind.
In 1999, Mohammad bin Abdullah al-Hajji, sentenced to death for murder, was reportedly pardoned by the relatives of the victim minutes before he was due to be executed in October.
Most executions are carried out for various crimes including murder, rape, and drug smuggling. Amnesty says of those executions that were announced, 64, including three women, were foreign nationals, mostly Pakistani, Indian, and Nigerian, populations who account for most of the Kingdom's foreign workforce.
Westerners have been treated with comparative leniency. They are usually allowed to consult lawyers and get visitations by embassy officials. Members of the House of Saud, founder of the modern kingdom, are also generally believed to be above the law.
Saudis joke that they have never seen a Westerner gets executed in the traditional manner. In 1998, Deborah Parry and Lucille McLauchlan, two British nurses charged with murdering their Australian workmate, Yvonne Gilford, walked out of the country although they had originally confessed to the crime.
They also recall with amusement how Washington pulled strings to save the neck of an American found guilty of murder during the time of King Abdel Aziz al-Saud, the founder of the Arab kingdom.
Instead of losing his head to the sword, the man was simply ordered to walk off for a long distance under a hot summer sun in the desert.
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