Saudi Arabia, key to Obama’s strategy, beheaded at least 8 people last month

[marmar]

(WaPo) U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry was in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, meeting delegations of Arab diplomats as the Obama administration attempts to cobble together a coalition of allies to confront the threat of the Islamic State. There are no illusions that the task ahead will be easy, and President Obama stressed in his Wednesday night speech the vital role Arab states have to play in breaking the terror organization's insurgency.

The active cooperation of Saudi Arabia, with its vast oil wealth, its well-equipped military and its broader influence among the Middle East's Sunni states, is key to any extended U.S. war effort in Iraq and Syria, as The Post's Anne Gearan reports from Jiddah. Though long an incubator of the Salafist ideology that now inflames the Islamic State and militant groups of its ilk, the kingdom has grown increasingly concerned with the destabilizing chaos the Islamic State has wrought in the region.

But that doesn't mean its state ideology is necessarily changing. The country is notorious for its draconian laws, which are derived from a strict Wahhabist interpretation of Islamic doctrine. In the space of two weeks last month, according to the rights group Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia executed as many as 22 people. At least eight of those executed were beheaded, U.N. observers say. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/09/11/saudi-arabia-key-to-obamas-strategy-beheaded-at-least-8-people-last-month/

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. And the USA has executed 29 people this year.

Or rather US states have. Beheading is swifter and more merciful than what's happened to a few of the people executed in the US (the condemned prisoner in Oklahoma who snorted and gasped for air for three hours, for instance). The USA doesn't really have any moral high ground in this argument.

[bvf]

5. Exactly.

Once the US abolishes the death penalty altogether, provides a living wage to all its citizens, formally apologizes to the descendants of the victims of our own genocidal history, etc., then we can talk about moral high ground.

[oberliner]

6. How many were for sorcery?

Or apostasy? Or "receiving drugs" ? Or adultery?

[Spider Jerusalem]

12. How many were for being black and unable to afford a decent lawyer?

For that matter, how many were innocent?

[oberliner]

16. None

No one has been executed in the US in the last 40 years for a crime other than murder.

[Spider Jerusalem]

17. Way to miss the point, there

[bvf]

19. That could change in the future

depending on how firm a foothold certain political elements manage to secure in our government. 40 years really isn't that long a time in the scheme of things.

[Maedhros]

21. Michael Brown was executed for allegedly stealing a box of cigarillos.

Why are you still not on my ignore list?

/fixed.

[jwirr]

14. You are right those are things we would not NOW execute anyone for but we are not totally

innocent even in this regard. My family tree has a Salem witch in it and also Native Americans as well as black ancestry that came from slavery. We had our times as well. The problem is that they are still doing it in the twenty first century.

[Liberal_in_LA]

20. good point

[Thinkingabout]

2. This is their method of carrying out a death srntence.

I am not happy about the beheading of prisoners and it does not make me happy ISIS is beheading journalists or any other person they can try to get ransom. This is a different story.

[whatchamacallit]

3. If what's fueling much of the ISIS outrage is the barbaric act of beheading

your Saudi Law distinction is a pathetic hypocritical dodge.

[Thinkingabout]

4. Did I say I liked this, Saudi can make tbeir the choice, it is not my choice.

[oberliner]

8. It is "prohibited under international law under all circumstances"

Two United Nations independent human rights experts today renewed their call on Saudi Arabia to implement an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty amid a reported increase in executions, many of them by beheading.

“Beheading as a form of execution is cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and prohibited under international law under all circumstances,” said Juan Méndez, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

“Despite several calls by human rights bodies, Saudi Arabia continues to execute individuals with appalling regularity and in flagrant disregard of international law standards,” said Christof Heyns, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.

“The trials are by all accounts grossly unfair. Defendants are often not allowed a lawyer and death sentences were imposed following confessions obtained under torture. The method of execution then aggravates a situation that is already totally unacceptable,” the experts said in a press release from the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR).

According to the experts, so far in 2014, at least 45 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia. Between 4 and 22 August, 22 people were executed, which represents an average of one execution per day. These included at least eight people beheaded for non-violent crimes including drug-smuggling and sorcery. Other offences resulting in beheading have reportedly included adultery and apostasy.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=48672#.VBUHkaJX-uY

[Thinkingabout]

9. Go tell the Saudi, I am not in the position to tell them.

[oberliner]

10. You are in the position to tell them

If you are someone who believes in the concept of human rights and international law.

Groups like Amnesty International, for instance, have been telling them that repeatedly.

Hopefully they will listen at some point if enough of us join the chorus.

[Thinkingabout]

11. No, not my bucket list, I grant you to tell them.

[oberliner]

7. And it's completely illegal under international law

It is one of the more brutal, inhumane methods of execution imaginable and is outlawed in virtually every country in the world.

Also these death sentences are carried out for crimes such as adultery and apostasy.

[Comrade Grumpy]

13. I don't really get this argument.

Being executed is being executed, unless there's some additional torture beforehand or suffering in the process.

I think the Saudis do it with one fell swoop of the sword, not sawing away.

But it is pretty gruesome. But then, so is hanging somebody or shooting them or electrocuting them...

[oberliner]

18. It's not an argument

It's just a statement of fact. According to international law, it is illegal.

[Spider Jerusalem]

15. How is it inhumane, exactly?

It's swift and painless if carried out properly. it's relatively gruesome, compared to something like lethal injection, but it's not any more brutal. It's not torturing someone to death.

[lexington filly]

22. We Americans like to pretend we're morally superior by using chemical

executions which can last an hour plus but are appalled by the use of a blade. Yet we're fine with blowing off the heads of "collateral damage" and "suspected" terrorists? As long as we do not have to personally bear witness or see it on video. As a human being I'm appalled by all forms of execution. Any religion that still practices in an eye for an eye or stoning or beheading I'd say needs to evolve whether here or in the Middle East.

[oberliner]

23. It's not Americans who are appalled by the blade - it's the whole world

That's why that form of execution was made illegal under international law and why human rights groups around the world, including representatives from the UN, are calling for those who are still doing it to stop.

[Chathamization]

25. Or melting their skin off with white phosporus, which we used precisely because it was so barbaric

and was used when attacking a city full of civilians.

One of the craziest outrages I've heard is about barrel bombs - as if having your head blown off by shrapnel is fine if the shrapnel comes from a sleek state of the art bomb, but horrendous if it comes from a bomb made out of a barrel.

[xchrom]

24. du rec.

[edhopper]

26. Why is ISIS beheading innocent people

different than Saudi Arabia beheading innocent people?
Why is one our enemy because they represent a cruel version of Islam, and the other our ally?
If ISIS controlled Iraq's oil and didn't restrict it's sale, would we support them as well?