Saudi jailed for discussing the Bible

Washington TImes ^ | 11/14/05

[Jean S]

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) -- A court sentenced a teacher to 40 months in prison and 750 lashes for "mocking religion" after he discussed the Bible and praised Jews, a Saudi newspaper reported yesterday.
    Al-Madina newspaper said secondary-school teacher Mohammad al-Harbi, who will be flogged in public, was taken to court by his colleagues and students.
    He was charged with promoting a "dubious ideology, mocking religion, saying the Jews were right, discussing the Gospel and preventing students from leaving class to wash for prayer," the newspaper said.
    Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, strictly upholds the austere Wahhabi school of Islam and bases its constitution on the Koran and the sayings of the prophet Muhammad. Public practice of any other religion is banned.
    A U.S. State Department report criticized Saudi Arabia last week, saying religious freedoms "are denied to all but those who adhere to the state-sanctioned version of Sunni Islam."
    The newspaper said Mr. al-Harbi will appeal the verdict.

[Hank Rearden]

750 lashes? Is that even survivable?

Stupid damn Moos. Islam must die.

[Jean S]

There is no doubt that 750 lashes would kill you. If this was a misprint, I think that 75 lashes would likely kill you too.

[injin]

Let's start arresting anyone that preaches or teaches Islam
in America ....good idea !

[Just Lori]

Yep, America is a horrible place! We have freedom of religion and speech and assembly. Is it any wonder no one wants to live here?

[endthematrix]

Sentences under 50 are more common. There have been 100 and 175 lashing sentences...750? Death sentence.

[airedale]

I think I read somewhere that they do this in stages. They give you so many then let you heal and then give you the next set until your sentence is complete. That's better than what the British did to mutineers during the Napoleonic era and latter. You'd get sentenced to X number of strokes. You'd be flogged X number of strokes at the flagship and then rowed to the next ship and flogged X number of times until it was done in front of each ship in port. If 20 ships were in port then you got 20 times X. They usually waited until they got to a major port to impose this punishment. After they finished flogging you they hung you and left you there for quite a while as a warning to others. It wasn't as long as they left criminals on shore hanging (until they fell apart) but you get the idea.

[West Coast Conservative]

The Religion of Peace strikes again!

[TheClintons-STILLAnti-American]

"Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, strictly upholds the austere Wahhabi school of Islam and bases its constitution on the Koran and the sayings of the prophet Muhammad. "

There's your problem.

The foundation for the country is built upon lies and self-serving pronouncements of a seventh century murderous lunatic.

[airedale]

I decided to look it up. I found the following at: http://www.amnesty.ca/SaudiArabia/3.php

"The most lashes in a single case recorded by Amnesty International is 4,000. These were imposed on Muhammad ’Ali al-Sayyid, an Egyptian national who was convicted of robbery in 1990. The sentence was carried out at a rate of 50 lashes every two weeks. Each time he received the lashes he was left with bruised or bleeding buttocks, unable to sleep or sit for three or four days afterwards. "

[ncountylee]

I send a polite email to the Saudi Embassey a couple of times a week with a religious question or two weekly and cc Condi Rice. Have yet to receive a reply from the Saudis.

[Proud_USA_Republican]

#%$^ing savages

[wildcatf4f3]

WWAD?

beat him to an inch of his life


how lovely

[DoughtyOne]

I've got a good idea, let's up the number of Saudi Students who can enter our nation to about 10,000...

This was recently done.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) -- A court sentenced a teacher to 40 months in prison and 750 lashes for "mocking religion" after he discussed the Bible and praised Jews, a Saudi newspaper reported yesterday.

Barbaric. And funded in part by our petrodollars.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The Religion of Peace as practiced by Saudi Government: a de facto violation of our Eighth Amendment.

[SirJohnBarleycorn]

Congress needs to pass a law prohibiting the foreign funding of religious institutions and schools in the United States by foreign governments and citizens thereof (e.g., Saudi Arabia) that do not in turn permit religious freedom in their own country.

The First Amendment prohibition on the free exercise of religion is intended for the benefit of Americans, not for the benefit of Saudis who do not recognize the principle of freedom of religion in their own country.

[kanawa]

Yeow...so this went on for a little over three years.

[Nextrush]

How about 750 lashes for the Saudis at Gitmo? Of course we
wouldn't do that. Where's the ACLU, the UN, Amnesty International, etc.? The ACLU is trying to ban anything that sounds like God in schools (Dover case), the UN has its
fingers where the sun doesn't shine and Amensty International, at least in our country is in on the anti-Wal-Mart campaign from what I've seen on the Wal-Mart Watch website.

[USF]

The unwanted results of TRUTH and FREEDOM in the KSA ping.

(Especially if you dont have any nice connections with the bandits of the House of Saud)

IMHO, it could be much worse. They could easily have trumped up the charges and sent him to chop chop square. Perhaps too many people already knew about the real circumstances.

[SlowBoat407]

Is he being punished so severely because he said these things as a muslim? (just looking at the name). Does this qualify him for some kind of martyrdom in Christian and Jewish eyes, even if he is not Christian or Jewish?

Oh, and why are we even dealing with these animals instead of opening up ANWR ten years ago and letting oil companies spend some of their profits on exploration and development?

[Gritty]

Is he being punished so severely because he said these things as a muslim?

Yes. The civil penalties in these countries are very severe for proselytizing or blasphemy against Allah.

I recently met a young man from one of these Middle Eastern countries who had secretly converted to Christianity. He lives in fear anybody will find out. He said if his family found out or the government knew, he would be excommunicated from his family, lose his job, be thrown in prison and mistreated, maybe executed - and this is a "friendly" Muslim country (but not Saudi Arabia).

Muslim countries with Sharia Law (which is most of them) do not tolerate this sort of thing. They may extend some tolerance if you are not a Muslim. But if you are a Muslim, there is zero tolerance. Even the death penalty is not too harsh if you convert away from Islam.

[TBP]

The Saudi government is horrible, but it is better than any available alternative. There is no democracy movement. For now, bringing down the House of Saud will simply result in the same kind of disaster that happened when we helped bring down (pro-American) governments in China, Cuba, Iran, and Nicaragua, among others.