Saudi Police Turn Witch Hunters

Some clarifying comments on the article, since I lived in Saudi Arabia for a little more than 2 years:

1. I do not know the Saudi penalty for blasphemy, but I suspect it involves more than the Muslim equivalent of 500 Hail Marys.

Note that the article uses the word terminate.

In the Sharia legal code of Saudi Arabia, apostasy is a capital crime ranking just under murder. The penalty is death by public beheading. (Apostasy is defined as attempting to convert someone from Islam to another religion.)

And if you ever find yourself broke and hungry on a lonely desert road in Saudi Arabia, resist any temptations. The penalty for highway robbery is crucifixion.

2. The headline says "Police," but it means "Religious Police" (or in Arabic, matowa). That's the informal name of The Authority For The Promotion Of Virtue And Prevention Of Vice.

The AFTPOVAPOV is basically just a group of government-funded busybodies. They're in the phone book, if you want to snitch on your neighbor for un-Islamic behavior.

Despite the "Police" title, they are unarmed, except for the occasional camel stick used to beat people who don't get into the mosques fast enough. Not even the Saudi government is crazy enough to hand out guns to otherwise unemployable religious fanatics. Probably because most coup attempts against the Saudi royal family have involved religious fanatics with guns. (Riyadh 1965, Mecca 1975, etc. etc.)

3. The bit about "uncovering hidden treasures" is also common in Egypt, where I'm staying right now. The local papers seem to report one of these cases every week. It usually involves a con man/woman promising to conjure up a djinn, who knows where a treasure is buried.

You could say that, for an officially alcohol-free country, Saudi Arabia sure has a lot of djinn joints. It would be a really lousy pun, but you COULD say it.

Usual Disclaimer: I'm an atheist. I don't have a god in this fight. It's all I can do to resist snarky remarks about using one superstition to combat another superstition.

Now, finally, the story...

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's powerful morality police is launching a witch hunt in the birthplace of Islam.

The Authority For The Promotion Of Virtue And Prevention Of Vice is setting up special centres in all cities to "register complaints on sorcerers and charlatans, track them and terminate them", the authority's Cheif Sheikh Ibrahim bin Abdallah al-Ghaith told al-Madinah newspaper.

Islam forbids magic and practicing it is considered blasphemy.

Saudi newspapers often report incidents involving so-called sorcerers, mainly from the Indian subcontinent and Africa.

Some Saudis pay them vast amounts of money, hoping to uncover hidden treasures or get jobs, according to the papers.

The religious police have wide powers in Saudi Arabia, which imposes a strict version of Sunni Islam, to prevent the spread of drugs, alcohol and prostitution as well as stop unrelated men and women mixing in public.

You Schiffer-divorcing-possibly-gay-but-I couldn't-care-less-sorcerer!



What???

Don't tell me you never fantasized about it.

I can assume that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire isn't going to be playing at the Mecca Multiplex anytime soon...? :evilgrin:

That place is such a bundle of laughs, isn't it?

THIS is life in a theocracy. It happens.