Top Saudi cleric calls for writers' deaths

[Ichingcarpenter]

Source: reuters

RIYADH, March 15 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's most revered cleric said in a rare fatwa this week that two writers should be tried for apostasy for their "heretical articles" and put to death if they do not repent.

Sheikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak was responding to recent articles in al-Riyadh newspaper that questioned the Sunni Muslim view in Saudi Arabia that adherents of other faiths should be considered unbelievers.

"Anyone who claims this has refuted Islam and should be tried in order to take it back. If not, he should be killed as an apostate from the religion of Islam," said the fatwa, or religious opinion, dated March 14 and published on Barrak's Web site.

"It is disgraceful that articles containing this kind of apostasy should be published in some papers of Saudi Arabia, the land of the two holy shrines," he said, referring to Muslim holy places in Mecca and Medina.

"The rulers should hold these papers to account ... and all those who took part in the publication should know they were involved in the sin of heretical articles."

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL15492468?rpc=64

---

I hear Cheney is visiting Saudi Arabia right now.

[0007]

1. Linsey Graham, Joe Lieberman and John McCain are in the ME

somewhere.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. All of them support' thought crimes'

So I wouldn't be surprise if they don't say a word about this.

[seriousstan]

3. "He should be killed as an apostate from the religion of Islam."

Only Islam can make Scientology look sane. What is Islam, the fucking Mafia? You can't get out alive?

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. Its like the catholics claiming that protestants and Jews are heretics

During the Dark Ages.

[Name removed]

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[MaryCeleste]

10. Scientology is a business...

[Codedonkey]

18. srsly srs bidness.

[sudopod]

22. LOL

Not for long. ^_^

http://enturbulation.org

[bushmeister0]

8. The beheaders are busy these days. . .

Remember, they're already sharpening up their swords for killing Fawza Falih, the woman convicted by a religious court for being a witch and then there's the case of Fouad al-Farhan, the Saudi blogger arrested for posting in his real name.

"Saudi Arabia's religious police plan to behead a woman accused of being a witch, a human rights group said yesterday. . . Fawza Falih was arrested and interrogated in the northern town of Quraiyat two years ago and was sentenced to death. The judges who convicted her relied on her forced confession and the statements of witnesses who said she had 'bewitched' them. One man claimed that he became impotent after Falih cast a spell on him."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=514433&in_page_id=1811

The WaPo:

Dec. 31 -- "Saudi Arabia's most popular blogger, Fouad al-Farhan, has been detained for questioning, an Interior Ministry spokesman confirmed Monday. It was the first known arrest of an online critic in the kingdom. Farhan, 32, who used his blog to criticize corruption and call for political reform, was detained 'for violating rules not related to state security,' according to the spokesman, Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, responding to repeated requests for comment with a brief cellphone text message."

Our good friends the Saudis. Naturally, we're counting on them to keep trading oil in petro-dollars, so we'd better not say anything to offend them.

[Bush_MUST_Go]

9. Sounds like what we hear in America from our own homegrown nutjobs. --->

“And I think people like Tim Russert and the others, who gave this guy such a free ride and all the media, they're the ones to be shot, not Karl Rove.” --Congressman Peter King (R-NY)


"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building." --Ann Coulter - NY Observor Interview, 8/20/2002


"When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors." --Ann Coulter - Jan. 2002

[pegleg]

11. these people are dangerous to us all

[Ordr]

12. Not surprised.

[closeupready]

13. This is exactly the crappy rhetoric that led to 9/11. Cheney

should tell the Saudis to put an END to this crap.

[Codedonkey]

19. hah, as if he would do such a thing....

Sadly I don't think any one who currently has a chance to be US president would do that either. I tend to doubt any other western nations leaders would do it either...

[barb162]

14. Appalling, medieval thinking. n/t

[B3Nut]

15. If your worldview cannot survive the mere expression of contrary views

then your worldview isn't worth a damn. Such rhetoric betrays a suppressed fear that one's worldview might be false, if you ask me. I've experienced this phenomenon in churches, hearing the pastor warn congregants not to read a certain book or article. If faith can be destroyed by a damn newspaper article, what good is it?

[bitchkitty]

16. Unreal, first the "witch" and now this.

And also a bit of the surreal - did anyone notice that the ad banner at the bottom of the topic is for an Arab dating site - Meet Sexy Arabs Online!

[Vidar]

17. We invaded the wrong country when Bush decided on Iraq.

[panzerfaust]

20. All religions cannot be true,

but all can be false.

God Bless - just make sure you pick the right god...

[BreweryYardRat]

21. Ugh. Religious fundamentalists.

If ever there were people worth treating to a page from Vlad Tepes' playbook...

Christian fundies are almost as bad, but at least they're usually too cowardly to kill the people their so-called "men of God" condemn. Muslim fundies, unfortunately, are not.

And damn, this loon pronounces death just for people considering that other faiths might believe in a similar version of God? The people of Saudi Arabia should be ashamed to have this psychopath in their country.