Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 9:50 A. M., Tuesday, August 31, 1999. “They will kill four today,” one Saudi in the crowd said. “No, fifteen,” said another. “You’re all wrong,” said one of the dozens of soldiers deployed around the parking lot of the city’s central mosque where the executions take place. “They will kill eight. They killed eight last Tuesday, and two more on Friday. And today is Tuesday, and they will kill eight again.” The method of execution is decreed in the Qu’ ran: beheading by sword. Saudi Arabia is the only nation that regularly beheads offenders.
I’m the only Westerner in the crowd. I'd arrived early with my Saudi military friend, Tariq, and I got a choice spot in the front row overlooking the platform where eight people would soon die. “We need these executions,” Tariq insists. “Without them we would have even more crime and more of a drug problem. God willing, we will never have a drug problem like America and Europe.” Their crime rate is lower than in the West, but they do have a drug problem, although it admittedly isn’t as severe as ours.
Saudi Arabia performs beheadings for murder, rape, armed robbery, drug smuggling, and other offenses that “threaten the public order,” such as armed robbery. When I first arrived in Saudi Arabia, their newspapers reported the beheading of two Saudis who raped a 12-year-old shepherd girl. I sent the article to my favorite pub in Maryland. I heard that waitresses and customers alike said they wished we meted out the same punishment to child rapists in America. Another article told of a gang of Nigerians who stole a car and robbed a bank. The sentence for the gunmen: off with their heads. The getaway driver got off easier: he had a right hand and left foot severed before the stumps were plunged into hot oil to cauterize the wound.......To Read More....
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