Execution, noose, cutting off eggs (continued). The death penalty in Saudi Arabia How a man's head is cut off in Saudi Arabia

On April 24, Saudi Press Agency, the state-run media outlet, reported that Saudi Arabia had carried out one of the most massive series of executions in the country's history, with the authorities carrying out the death penalty against 37 people. One of them was crucified: this punishment is applied in the country only for the most serious crimes, reports Nikita Likhachev from TJournal. Among those executed were those who were accused of killing security officials with explosives, forming terrorist cells, and spreading terrorist ideology. But there were also those who were executed for crimes allegedly committed before adulthood, which is prohibited by international law.

Abdulkarim al-Khawaj (left) and Mujtaba al-Sweikat (right). Photo before detention

The Daily Mail spoke about several of these executed. For example, Abdulkarim al-Khawaj was only 16 years old when he spread information via WhatsApp about the protests. He was publicly beheaded when he was already 21 years old. He was detained at the airport, from where he was supposed to fly to his family. Mujtaba al-Sweikat was 17 when he took part in the protests. He was arrested in 2012, also at the airport - he was supposed to fly away to enter an American university. Munir al-Adam was 23 years old when he was detained in 2012 at a checkpoint. From the age of five, he was deaf in one ear, and after being tortured, he became completely deaf.

Saudi authorities said in a statement that all those executed have confessed to their guilt. CNN, citing obtained court documents, reported that some of those executed claimed at trial that they were innocent, and their confessions were written by investigators and only signed by them under torture. In some cases, the suspects were not even required to sign - a fingerprint was put on the paper with the "testimony".

According to Amnesty International, 11 of those executed were accused of spying for Iran, and 14 more of participating in protests in the eastern part of the country between 2011 and 2012. According to the British human rights organization Reprieve, confessions were forced out of all suspects under torture, on the basis of which they were sentenced to death. Executions were carried out in the capital Riyadh and in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

Other suspects in similar crimes are still on death row in Saudi Arabia. For example, Ali al-Nimr was sentenced to crucifixion for participating in protests and teaching first aid to protesters, two more young men were sentenced to death for crimes they committed before the age of 18.

In 2016, Saudi Arabia executed 46 people at once, including Shiite leader Nimr al-Nimr. Intolerance towards dissent grew after Prince Mohammed bin Salman became defense minister in 2015. In 2017, he became the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, meaning the current king chose him as his successor.

A large, oil-rich Middle Eastern country that borders Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq and Jordan, Saudi Arabia is the most influential power in the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi Arabia is the "Land of the Two Holy Mosques", home to the oldest Islamic cities, and one of the few states with an absolute monarchy. She is the only one with access to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The kingdom is beautiful, of course, but its traditions of treating women and using the death penalty are controversial points for the whole world. Saudi Arabia also leads the OPEC oil cartel, which has a huge impact on the global oil market.
The Kingdom once armed entered the civil war in Yemen, supporting the government against the Houthi militants. But outside help does not rule out problems of its own: declining oil prices, internal political divisions, and attempts to diversify the economy. In the understanding of the West, this country is an anachronism, where the fundamentalist interpretation of Islam is the absolute law, and where a woman is forbidden to drive a car. But on the other hand, here are the roots of a great history and culture, to which millions of Muslims annually flock for the pilgrimage hajj and huge oil fields.
Here are 15 amazing facts about the oil Kingdom of Saudi Arabia:
15. NO ELECTIONS, PARLIAMENT, POLITICAL PARTIES AND DISSENT

An absolute monarchy reigns here, there are no national elections, political parties and a representative parliament, there is only a symbolic council body, the Majlis ash-Shura, or Consultative Assembly, which does not have the power to make laws and enforce them. This open disregard for democratic norms has been going on for decades. Along with the most brutal dictatorial countries, Saudi Arabia regularly receives the lowest civil and political freedom scores from think tanks like Freedom House.
Nor is there a constitution, although a charter known as the Basic Law of Saudi Arabia, adopted by royal decree in 1992, obliges the monarch to rule by observing the Shariah and the Koran instead of the Constitution. Criticism and dissent are strictly forbidden: activists are regularly imprisoned and sentenced to cruel punishments. Examples: Abd al-Karim, who demanded a transition to a constitutional monarchy and received 8 years in prison for this, and blogger Raif Badawi, who received 1,000 lashes for calling for freedom of speech.
14. HOUSE OF THE HOLY ISLAMIC CITIES


Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam and the most sacred religious places - Mecca and Medina. At 13 meters high, the Kaaba is the holiest site in the Great Mosque of Mecca, Islam's holiest mosque. All Muslims send their prayers to her. One of the five pillars of Islam requires every Muslim to make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in his life, if he has the strength and finances to do so. Approximately two million people visit Saudi Arabia every year.
It's not hard to guess that a large gathering of pilgrims in one place can lead to serious problems, such as the stampede in 2015, which killed and injured, according to some reports, more than 2,000 people.
13. THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH EXECUTIONERS FOR ALL THE EXECUTIONS


The death penalty is widespread in Saudi Arabia. In 2015, the authorities saw them off every other day. The country ranks 4th in the world in terms of the number of executions, they are carried out for reasons such as adultery and rejection of Islam. In most cases, the execution is carried out by cutting off the head with a scimitar. The Kingdom may be the only country that suffers from a shortage of executioners: in early 2013, the government thought about changing the method of execution due to the lack of executioners. The method of execution is considered in priority.
In addition, Saudi Arabia is one of four countries where public executions remain. Diera Square in the center of Riyadh is a famous site of public beheadings, known locally as "Chop-Chop Square".
12. HUGE OIL RESERVES


What words come to mind when you think of Saudi Arabia? Since the Kingdom is the largest exporter of crude oil, its name is synonymous with everything related to oil and gas. More than half of GDP comes from the profits of the oil industry. Oil reserves are simply unrealistic: the largest Gavar field can accommodate 4,770,897 Olympic pools. It is estimated that even after decades of pumping oil for export, there are still about 75 billion barrels left.
Saudi Arabia holds 22 percent of the world's oil reserves, only Venezuela has more. In 1960, the Kingdom was a founding member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Due to the massive oil industry, 30 percent of the country's population are foreign workers.
11. THE LARGEST COUNTRY WITHOUT A SINGLE RIVER


With an area of ​​more than 2 million square kilometers, Saudi Arabia ranks 13th in the world in terms of territorial size. More than 95 percent are deserts and semi-deserts, many of which are the largest on earth (Great Nefud in the north and Rub al-Khali in the south). Due to the abundance of deserts and an average temperature of about 45 degrees Celsius, there are no rivers and lakes in Saudi Arabia, but underground reservoirs flow.
This is the largest country in the Middle East, it makes up most of the Arabian Peninsula (about a quarter of the US) and is the world's largest territorial entity without a single river on the map.
10. THE ROYAL FAMILY WORTH $14 TRILLION


As heads of the House of Saud, the monarch and thousands of his royal relatives hold every important office in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The kingship of this country would have been the object of the desire of any medieval court; King Salman's net worth is estimated at more than $17 billion, and more than 7,000 family princes (some estimates put the number of members of the royal nobility at around 30,000) hold important positions, while more talented candidates are left behind due to the wrong name.
From the state oil monopoly, the royal family receives huge profits, which are estimated at about 270 billion a year.
In fact, if you represent all of the wealth of the Saudi royal family as a single sum, it comes out to about $14 trillion.
9. Severe punishments

We have already mentioned the cruel laws of Saudi Arabia, what about punishments? It turns out that they are no better: the legal system uses the same ultra-conservative and traditionalist school of Hanbali as the foundations of jurisprudence, as does the terrorist Islamic State. Litigation takes place solely on the basis of a particular interpretation of Islamic law.
Among the punishments of the authorities are chopping off hands and feet for theft, whipping and stoning for adultery and other acts, beheading for riots, political crimes, drug smuggling and witchcraft. Death sentences are also passed for blasphemy, homosexuality and robbery by violence. Saudi Arabia has not responded to ever-increasing pressure to liberalize its legal system and has consistently applied penalties and the death penalty.
8. A DANGEROUS FAD "SIDEWALK SKIING"


This is a rather bold entertainment, fraught with a "funny" danger. The stunt consists of driving on two wheels on one side of the car on the roadway, during which a person climbs onto the car and stands on top of it during the entire movement. Fans of this entertainment treat it with a purely sporting interest, but this is one of the most useless and dangerous inventions that mankind has ever given out.
In one video, a team of similar stuntmen climb out of a car to change a tire. All this happens on the go. Saying "Don't try this at home" is an understatement.
7. TENT VILLAGE


Initially, pilgrims took tents with them on their journey and set them up on the plains of Mina. In the 1990s, the Saudi Arabian government made housing easier for religious tourists by setting up campsites with regular cotton tents. But in 1997, a fire broke out in the settlement, which claimed the lives of 350 pilgrims. After that, a new camp was organized with fire-resistant tents. Mina city has 100,000 neat fireproof tents with air conditioning, kitchen and bathroom. In fact, this is a modern residential complex.
The state-of-the-art tents can accommodate about 3 million people. About 5 days a year they are occupied by pilgrims, and the rest of the time they are empty. The kingdom has received a barrage of global criticism after refusing to host Syrian refugees there.
6. THE PROBLEM WITH LINGERIE


Women are effectively prohibited from working outside the home. This causes embarrassing situations, such as when the clerk in the lingerie department is a man. Embarrassed women who could not make intimate purchases because of this made an attempt to change the legislation. They were heeded, and in 2012 a decree was issued banning men from working in lingerie stores.
But the decree was contrary to Sharia, which is why about a hundred stores ignored the innovation. A few months after the entry into force of the law, they were closed. The decree is still in effect, and various inspections regularly monitor its implementation. If a male salesperson is found, the shops are threatened with closure.
5. THEY HAVE "MAGIC POLICE"


In Saudi Arabia, everything that is directly or indirectly related to magic, witchcraft and magic is banned. This is considered a serious crime, people were even beheaded for supposedly practicing magic. The government takes the magical threat so seriously that it even banned the Harry Potter books and created special anti-witchcraft police squads. Established in 2009, the Anti-Witchcraft Group is a member of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Disorder of the Saudi Religious Police. They are tasked with apprehending sorcerers and preventing their spells. Since 2009, more than 500 people have been prosecuted for practicing magic.
People supposedly whispering spells, performing rituals, or caught with talismans can get into very serious trouble. But the question of witchcraft is very delicate, because the original and generally recognized features of witches are as follows: they have a broom on which they fly. Saudi Arabia's legal code leaves the matter to the judge, who must decide whether a person is guilty of witchcraft and receives the death penalty.
4. IN THE FUTURE, THE COUNTRY WITH THE HIGHEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD


The most long-awaited event for all the people of the globe is the construction of the “Tallest building in the world”. The position is currently held by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. In 2018, the Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia, also known as the Royal Tower, will proudly take the title. It will be the first building in history to reach a kilometer in height and will be the gleaming centerpiece of Saudi Arabia's new coastal city. To imagine what it would look like, imagine the World Trade Center in New York (541 meters) - that's just over half the estimated height of the King's Tower.
When completed, the tower will have a hotel, an observatory, offices, and obscenely expensive penthouses. Estimated cost $1.2 billion. Now the project is called "the limit of engineering possibilities."
3 WOMEN'S RIGHTS ARE WORSE THAN YOU THOUGHT


Before traveling to Saudi Arabia, it is highly recommended that you familiarize yourself with its laws. Recently, women's rights in the Persian Gulf have been the subject of social opposition. It is now the last country on earth where women are not allowed to drive. This fact attracts representatives of the media everywhere. This is just the tip of the iceberg, without the permission of a man, women are prohibited from leaving the house, making purchases, opening a bank account, getting a job, attending school, acting as a legal and other official and agreeing to an operation.
Until recently, women could not vote and sit in the advisory chamber, making Saudi Arabia the latest country to give women the right to vote. Before his death, King Abdullah assigned a fifth of the council chamber to women and allowed them to vote, but this was more of a symbolic gesture that did not essentially affect the lives of Saudi women.
2. ONE OF THE BIGGEST MILITARY BUDGETS IN THE WORLD


For a country of 33 million people, Saudi Arabia's military spending is enormous. The Kingdom usually ranks 4th in the world in terms of military spending, behind the United States, China and Russia, and all superpowers have a population and territory several times larger. In 2015, it was in 3rd place, raising its budget from $80 billion to over $87 billion.
By the way, Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries that has one of the most advanced tanks in the world - the M1 Abrams. There are about several hundred of them. In 2010-2014, the Kingdom was the world's second largest arms importer.
1. IMPORT OF SAND AND CAMEL FROM AUSTRALIA


Yes, that's right: the sand country actually buys its sand from Australia. What for? It turns out that not a single type of Saudi sand is suitable for construction. Construction of buildings requires special alluvial sand without silica (it often generates a lot of dust and difficulties for workers during sandblasting). The Kingdom receives sand with the necessary properties in bulk from Australia.
Now about camels. In Saudi Arabia, they are used to transport people and goods, and sometimes for racing. Australia is happy to export its camels, which are wild and vicious. Ironically, camels were first imported to Australia from Arabia, India and Afghanistan in the 19th century.

The other day in Saudi Arabia, one of the most massive series of executions in the history of the country took place - the authorities enforced the death sentence against 37 people, most of them Shiites. One of them was crucified, this punishment is applied in the country only for the most serious crimes, writes TJournal.

Among those executed were those who were accused of killing security officials with explosives, forming terrorist cells and spreading terrorist ideology. But there were also those who were executed for crimes allegedly committed before adulthood, which is prohibited by international law.

The Western media reported on several such executions. For example, Abdulkarim al-Khawaj was only 16 years old when he spread information via WhatsApp about the protests. He was publicly beheaded when he was already 21 years old. He was detained at the airport, from where he was supposed to fly to his family.

Mujtaba al-Sweikat was 17 when he took part in the protests. He was arrested in 2012, also at the airport - he had to fly away to enter a university in the United States.

Abdulkarim al-Khawaj and Mujtab al-Sweikat

Munir al-Adam was 23 years old when he was detained in 2012 at a checkpoint. From the age of five, he was deaf in one ear, and after being tortured, he became completely deaf.

Saudi Arabia said in a statement that all those executed have confessed to their guilt. CNN, citing obtained court documents, reported that some of those executed claimed at trial that they were innocent, and their confessions were written by investigators and only signed by them under torture. In some cases, the suspects were not even required to sign - a fingerprint was put on the paper with the "testimony".

According to Amnesty International, 11 of those executed were charged with spying for Iran and 14 others with participating in protests in the eastern part of the country between 2011 and 2012. According to the British human rights organization Reprieve, confessions were forced out of all suspects under torture, on the basis of which they were sentenced to death. Executions were carried out in Riyadh, Mecca and Medina.

Other suspects in similar crimes are still awaiting the death penalty. For example, Ali al-Nimr was sentenced to crucifixion for participating in protests and teaching first aid to protesters, two more young men were sentenced to death for crimes they committed before the age of 18.

Ali al-Nimr (above), Abdullah al-Zaher (left) and Dawood al-Marhun sentenced to death

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi called the execution of 37 Saudi nationals a manifestation of the pre-Islamic era of "ignorance." He called on the world community to resist such actions of Riyadh.

In 2016, Saudi Arabia executed 46 people at once, including Shiite leader Nimr al-Nimr.

On January 2, Saudi Arabia executed 47 people at a time on charges of promoting extremist ideology, terrorist activities and participating in conspiracies, including the Shiite preacher Nimr al-Nimr. This caused a wave of indignation around the world and, above all, in Shiite Iran, where protesters broke into the building of the Saudi embassy and tried to set a fire there. As a result, this led to a break in diplomatic relations between Riyadh and Tehran.

Almost simultaneously, the blood of those executed was shed on the territory controlled by the Islamic State banned in Russia (IS, ISIS, the Arabic version of the name is DAISH). His militants published a video in which they killed five British citizens accused of espionage.

These two incidents are an occasion to rethink the fundamental relationship between the two Sharia entities, Saudi Arabia and the Islamic State, one of which enjoys public patronage from the collective West.

Scenes from the Middle Ages

A typical execution scene in Saudi Arabia looks like this. Before us are many people in white clothes and red turbans-gutras. The executioner raises a sharpened saber and with a light movement cuts off the condemned head. The head falls to the asphalt, the executioner steps back a few steps so that he is not splashed with gushing blood. After that, we see cars passing by. According to Sharia law, the execution must be public, it must be observed by devout Muslims so that crimes do not repeat themselves in the future. But in our time, there are few people who want to watch the execution, so the executioners simply block the busy intersection. Drivers of stopped cars are forced to watch the execution. At the end of the execution, the fire engine quickly washes the intersection and traffic is reopened. This is Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Sharia law has been in force in this land for hundreds of years.

Let us give the impressions of such a spectacle by a Time newspaper photographer: “When the execution began, the rebels grabbed him by the throat. He began to resist. Three or four rebels pinned him to the ground. The man tried to protect his throat with his hands, which were still bound. He fought, but the rebels were stronger and they slit his throat. They lifted his severed head into the air. People around began to brandish their weapons and cheer. Everyone was happy that the execution took place. This scene was like from the Middle Ages, you usually read about this in history books. The war in Syria has reached the point where a person can be mercilessly killed in front of hundreds of people who enjoy the spectacle.” This is the city of Kefergan, the territory controlled by the Islamic State.

Here is another punishment. Here, apparently, chopping off the head is not enough. Sri Lankans convicted of murder were first beheaded and then crucified on crosses. Their corpses will be put up for public desecration - so that others would be disrespectful. Are the ISIS radicals again? No, this is the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

How to eat a woman

And it was necessary! A 50-year-old Indian woman who worked as a servant in Saudi Arabia complained of ill-treatment and delayed wages. After the maid tried to escape, her employer tied her to the balcony of her own sari and cut off her right hand. The woman was taken to a Riyadh hospital by neighbors. Representatives of the Indian Foreign Ministry called the incident "a terrible and reprehensible incident." Despite this, the Saudi has not yet been punished.

A woman in Saudi Arabia is generally a creature without rights. For example, in 2014, the country's Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Ali, allowed cannibalism. Aziz Ali stated literally the following: “If a man is mortally hungry and does not find food at home, he can cut off a fragment of his wife’s body and eat it. A woman should treat this decision with devotion and humility, as she is one with her husband.

The Islamic State militants also decided to implement the advice of Saudi textbooks. In the Iraqi city of Mosul they captured, a man accused of homosexuality was thrown from the roof of a house. Dozens of people came to see the execution, including children. The fact that the man was sentenced to death was announced into the microphone by one of the terrorists. People crowded around his crushed body, although the sight was not for the faint of heart.

Tooth for tooth, eye for eye

However, even more brutal methods of killing are practiced in ISIS. Recently, a video of the execution of a 19-year-old Syrian army soldier appeared on the Web. The fighter was a tanker. In the video, he walks towards the terrorists' tank, falls under its tracks. A car runs over a young soldier, leaving him with only shattered bones and a flattened brain.

And here is another application of the ancient principle of talion (when punishment reproduces the harm done): a captive Jordanian pilot stands in an iron cage. He is wearing bright orange clothes doused with a combustible mixture. A militant in light camouflage sets fire to a path of gasoline with a torch, the fire covers the entire cage and the executed.

But in the kingdom of the Saudis there are punishments "softer". Blogger Raif Badawi was accused of insulting Islam. Badawi discussed religious issues in his blog and criticized the current government. For this, the Sharia state sentenced him to a thousand lashes, a fine of 1 million Saudi riyals and ten years in prison. Probably out of "philanthropy" lashes will be applied gradually: fifty lashes every week.

The death penalty in Saudi Arabia also extends to foreigners: on May 6, 2015, five people from East Africa were executed there. They were accused of killing an Indian guard and stealing his money. Africans were beheaded, after which their corpses were hung from a helicopter. According to the authorities, this should deter others from committing similar crimes.

crushed hopes

According to Western human rights activists, since January 1985, more than 2.2 thousand people have been executed in Saudi Arabia. At the same time, about half of them are foreigners.

Until the 90s of the last century, women in the kingdom were shot. However, then the authorities decided that ... representatives of the weaker sex should also be cut off their heads. To determine the religious affiliation, a Saudi visa contains a column on the religion of a foreigner. The religious police (muttawa) operate in the country. Soldiers of the Sharia Guard constantly patrol the streets and public institutions of Saudi cities in order to suppress attempts to violate the canons of Islam. If a violation is found, the perpetrator is punished - from a fine to beheading.

An Amnesty International report on the death penalty noted that "there were some hopes for human rights reforms when King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud took the throne in early 2014, but they are now completely crushed."

The death penalty is protected in Saudi Arabia at the state level. The president of the Saudi Commission on Human Rights, Bandar Al-Aiban, said that the kingdom cannot neglect the rights of the victims of criminals. And a little earlier, the spokesman for the country's interior ministry, General Mansour Al-Turki, explained the difference between the death sentence carried out in the "Islamic State" and Saudi practice. "IS has no legal mechanism in deciding whether to execute people," At-Turki said.

Could Faisal Trat, Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the UN, have recently been appointed chairman of the advisory group in the UN Human Rights Council for the existence of a “legal mechanism”?

Who is bad and who is good

Double standards have always been a part of world politics - suffice it to recall examples of different interpretations of the right of peoples to self-determination and the principle of territorial integrity. Kosovo Albanians can secede, but Russians in Crimea cannot. The Jews are entitled to their own nation state, but the Kurds are not. Slobodan Milosevic is bad, so we are bombing Yugoslavia, and Al Saud is selling oil, we shake his hand. With whom I am friends, I forgive him, with whom I am not friends, I bring democracy to him ...

It is necessary, however, to know the measure. It is time for our Western partners to understand that there is no fundamental difference between the Saudi regime and the terrorist IS, and not only in the area of ​​justice. Without waiting for cases of decapitation by Islamist fanatics to become a sustainable practice not only in the Middle East, but also in the center of Western capitals - with grateful spectators, jurists-interpreters and executioners on the payroll.

This text is one of them. In Saudi Arabia, executions are often and in large numbers. Sexual contact outside of marriage, or at least a hint of it, atheism, conversion from Islam to another religion, homosexuality, witchcraft, gambling - this is an incomplete list of crimes for which in the Wahhabi kingdom you can get a thousand lashes, ten years in prison, or even lose your head . And despite the indignation of the international community, Riyadh is not going to soften its legal system.

Law in Saudi

This is understandable: Saudi Arabia is a theocratic monarchy, where the entire justice system is built on a religious foundation. The dominant religion is Islam, the dominant confession is Sunnism, the dominant religious trend is Wahhabism. Therefore, in Saudi Arabia, as in the "Islamic State", with which the kingdom is officially at war, Sharia law applies.

It is not surprising that Saudi justice differs markedly from Western justice: a mere oath is often enough to accuse or acquit, a lawyer is often considered an unnecessary luxury, executions of minors and the mentally ill are allowed, no difference is made (at least formally) between a subject of the kingdom and a foreigner in issuing sentence (in particular, among those executed on January 2 were citizens of Chad and Egypt).

According to Sharia, a judge can impose three types of punishments: hadd (for crimes against morality and public order - drunkenness, gambling, slander, depravity), qisas (punishments on the principle of "an eye for an eye", which are prescribed for murder and grievous bodily harm) and tazir - punishments in edification for violations of the social order, such as homosexuality, adultery, theft in the bazaar, disobedience to authorities, failure to fast, and the like.

Hadd, as a rule, provides for public lashes, qisas allows you to pay for the damage with money (diya), but tazir can vary widely - from edifying conversation to chopping off the head, followed by crucifixion.

Healing Lash

Most often in the field of attention of foreign media comes punishment with whips. Although it is distributed almost throughout the Muslim world, Saudi Arabia stands out noticeably from the general background. They hit more and more. There are no strict rules: the Sharia judge himself decides how many lashes the offender deserves.

The sad record belongs to the Egyptian Muhammad Ali al-Sayyid: in 1990 he was sentenced to four thousand blows. Riyadh explained to the outraged world community that, in fact, al-Sayyid was given mercy: the Egyptian was accused of robbery, and his hand should have been cut off. And limited to flogging.

Four thousand lashes - is it a lot or a little? Here is what Donato Lama, a Filipino, who was sentenced to 75 lashes in 1999 for public confession of Christianity, said: “I was taken to the place of flogging and tied to a pole. Their hands were handcuffed, and their feet were also handcuffed. I was wearing a T-shirt and running pants. The whip is one and a half meters long, its end is weighted with a piece of lead. Several blows landed on my thighs and back. I would have fallen when the whip lashed my legs, but the guard held me, and the execution continued. Amazing: I survived 70 blows, but I was still alive. Blood was running down my back, I was screaming."

Another type of public punishment is beheading. Produced with a large crowd of people. As a rule, after the execution, the body of the criminal is put on public display for educational purposes - most often crucified.

The fight for sobriety

The most common crime for which the Saudi themis punishes foreigners is a violation of the strict Sharia prohibition on alcohol. The year before last, the kingdom's police arrested 73-year-old Briton Carl Andry in the city of Jeddah after finding him a bottle of homemade wine. Although Andry was ill with cancer and asthma, he spent more than a year in prison, waiting for his punishment - 350 lashes. Only after the British government, under pressure from Andry's relatives and the newly elected leader of the opposition Labor Party, Jeremy Corbyn, terminated the contract with Riyadh for training prison staff and threatened to further worsen relations, the Saudis backtracked and let the convict go home.

He was much more fortunate than his compatriot John Kelly: in 1985, he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and 250 lashes - 50 at a time with two-month breaks for rehabilitation, as well as a fine of 17 thousand pounds. So bitter was the outrage of the British government that Riyadh for the next thirty years preferred to turn a blind eye to the moonshining practiced by many British expats, and in case of unpleasant incidents, simply expel them - like Peter and Ann Goldsmiths, caught making homemade wine and importing to whiskey country.

But what is allowed to Jupiter, that is to say Britain - one of the key Saudi allies since the formation of the Wahhabi kingdom - is not allowed to the bull. In September 1999, Faustino Salazar, a Filipino, found two chocolate bars filled with alcohol in his luggage. Despite the detainee's assurances that he had bought chocolate from a duty free shop at the Bahrain airport, he was sentenced to 75 lashes and four months in prison.

Country of one religion

However, religious crimes are considered much more serious. The worst thing is apostasy, which is understood not only as a transition to another faith, but also atheism. Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayyad is now in prison, on execution: according to Sharia judges, in one of his books he promoted atheism.

At the same time, more than seven percent of the population of Saudi Arabia are non-Muslims. Most of the Catholic guest workers are from the Philippines, but there are also representatives of other faiths: Protestants from Europe, Orthodox from Egypt, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Public confession of Christianity in the kingdom is prohibited, and non-Islamic religious items, including the Bible, crucifixes, and images of saints, cannot be stored. Christians and representatives of other religions can only pray at home. The observance of the law is monitored by a special religious police - the Sharia Guard.

Frame: Theodore Shoebat / LifeLeak

Quite often foreign Christians find themselves hostages of the international situation. After information was leaked to the press in 2004 about the desecration of the Koran by the American military at the Guantanamo base, the Sharia guard conducted a series of raids on Christian apartments, covering an underground Catholic church in one of them and arresting more than 40 Pakistani Christians, as well as several Catholics. Filipinos. Needless to say, not a single American was detained: Washington is also a key ally of Riyadh, with whom the Saudis do not want to quarrel. It is much easier to take out your anger on defenseless Filipinos or Pakistani Christians who are considered pariahs in their native country.

Sex and prison

An important field of activity of Sharia courts is the prevention of depravity and adultery. Moreover, these concepts are interpreted very broadly.

In October 2009, Mazen Abdul-Jawad, an employee of Saudi Airlines, imprudently went on air on Lebanese television, talking about his sex life and dating girls. Upon returning to his homeland, five years in prison and a thousand lashes awaited him.

The most egregious case is considered to be the case that became known as the “rape in Qatif”. In 2006, seven people attacked a young Shia woman and her companion in a car, abducted and raped them both. The perpetrators received several hundred lashes and prison terms, but rape victims were also sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes for being in a car together without being spouses.

Despite enormous pressure from the conservative masses of the population and the Sharia guard, the husband of the victim did not abandon her, saying that the woman was not to blame for anything. A wave of indignation has risen in the world. Even future President Barack Obama, then a senator, urged the State Department to do everything possible to prevent victims from being punished. In the end, King Abdullah made a Solomonic decision: he canceled the sentence of the injured woman, explaining this with considerations of the public good, but emphasized that the judge acted absolutely fairly.

"Gay Paradise"

Homosexuality in Saudi Arabia is also severely punished - you can lose your head for a same-sex relationship. However, often judges impose a rather lenient sentence, especially when compared with sentences under other articles. So, one of the inhabitants of the kingdom, whose name is not disclosed, received three years in prison and 450 lashes: he was accused of dating other men using the microblog on Twitter, and was convicted of "indulgence in vice and homosexuality."

Perhaps one reason is that homosexuality is widespread in Saudi Arabia. A paradoxical situation has developed in the kingdom: the fight against extramarital sex, the relationship between a man and a woman is given much more attention than the fight against same-sex sex. There is an unspoken pact between gays and the Saudi authorities: the LGBT community demonstrates respect for the norms of Wahhabism, in exchange for which the authorities turn a blind eye to the "private life" of these subjects. Sometimes there are excesses, but in general the contract is respected. As one of the Saudi gays, 42-year-old American ex-pat Radwan, admitted in an interview with The Atlantic, there is a large LGBT community in large cities like Jeddah and Riyadh, and many of the gays openly meet in cafes, make dates on the streets and on the Internet. . Another homosexual, the Syrian Talal, who has been living in the kingdom for 15 years, called Riyadh a “gay paradise”.

In general, Saudi homosexuality bears little resemblance to European homosexuality. The attitude towards same-sex relationships in the kingdom is somewhat similar to the attitude towards it in Russian prisons. It is believed that the reputation of only a passive partner suffers, and an active one, on the contrary, emphasizes his masculinity and, as it were, is not a homosexual.

Strict Sharia law, which forbids sexual contact between unmarried men and women, literally pushes young men to look for a partner among comrades. As a result, consensual homosexuality or in the form of rape has become a long-standing problem in sex-segregated Saudi educational institutions.

War with sorcerers

If the Saudi authorities turn a blind eye to homosexuality, then they are fighting resolutely and uncompromisingly against witchcraft. For him, the sentence, as a rule, is one: beheading and subsequent crucifixion - as a warning to others.

As a rule, vigilant neighbors or subordinates report that one or another citizen of the kingdom is engaged in forbidden magic. For these purposes, a special hotline has been organized: anyone can report a magical crime to the anti-witchcraft service. When arrested, additional security measures are taken: after all, it is reliably known that some sorcerers enter into an agreement with genies, so they can fly through the air.

The fight against sorcerers is not limited to the limits of the kingdom. In 2010, the Lebanese soothsayer Ali Hussein Sibat lost his head: during his speech on a TV show, he predicted the future to those who wished and gave advice to the audience. Saudi intelligence agencies followed him for several years and arrested him when Sibat imprudently decided to perform the Hajj.

Most often, however, the victims of vigilant fighters against magic are guest workers, whose status is obviously lower than that of the native Saudis and who cannot defend themselves. So, in May 2013, two maids from Southeast Asia were sentenced to a thousand lashes and ten years in prison for magical harm inflicted on their owners. Given the usual sentence for witchcraft, we can assume that the women got off lightly.

All this Saudi specificity causes natural protests in the West. Citizens of Europe and other civilized countries often wonder why Washington and London, emphasizing moral considerations, rank Tehran in the "axis of evil" due to the fact that the death penalty is widely practiced there, but turn a blind eye to the much more severe sentences that endure the Sharia courts of the Wahhabi kingdom?