Posted on 11/26/2009 1:27:48 PM PST by nickcarraway
When the popular 46-year-old Lebanese psychic Ali Sibat went on-air and made his predictions about the future, the phone lines of the satellite television station Sheherazade used to be flooded with calls.
But what the star psychic probably did not predict was that his claims to supernatural prowess would land him a death sentence.
"He was the most popular psychic on the channel," the Lebanese news agency Naharnet quoted Sibat’s lawyer May Khansa as saying. "The number of callers, including from all over the gulf, spiked in number when he appeared."
But while on pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia last year, Sibat was spotted by religious police in the holy city of Medina. Their job it is to battle vice and uphold virtue in the ultraconservative kingdom. So they arrested Sibat in his room at the Medina Hotel on charges of sorcery.
On Nov. 9, Sibat was given a death sentence by a Mecca court for allegedly practicing witchcraft.
Sibat’s fate is common in Saudi Arabia.
Scores of alleged witch doctors, fortunetellers, and black magicians each year are dragged through the Saudi courts, including Fawza Falih, who’s been on death row since 2006 for witchcraft.
Her accusers include a man who claims the 51-year-old, illiterate Falih is the reason for his impotence. The witch hunt in the kingdom and a recent rise in witchcraft and sorcery cases are causing concern among human rights groups. News reports say at least two other people have been snatched for witchcraft only in the last month.
New York-based Human Rights Watch called on the Saudi government Tuesday to overturn Sibat’s death sentence and all other witchcraft convictions for crimes the group says are loosely defined and used in an arbitrary way.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
And why do witches float?? ,,,,,, because,,,,, they are,,,, made,,, of wood?
Well, in light of Dubai defaulting on most of its sovereign debt and futures being down 24 as I post this, perhaps Mr. Geithner and Mr. Bernanke will have something to say about it when the market opens tomorrow.
Hey, folks, you’re going the wrong way—the 21st century is THIS way.
Can they execute the psychic if his alleged sorcery was not committed within Saudi borders?
This sort of thing makes me ill. The barbarity of the Saudis is just...revolting!
Is Hillary there?
>SAUDI ARABIA: Kingdom Steps Up Hunt For ‘Witches’ And ‘Black Magicians’
Witchs like Pelosi and “black magicians” like Obowma who makes up job numbers out of his arse?
He turned me into a newt.
THAT'S RACIST.
The problem with witch hunts is since they never really existed in the first place how do you tell when you have executed the last one?
“Got a Black Magic Muslim”
And they are treated as "civilized" because?.......
Oh yeah, they should be allowed to possess WMDs. /s
And he turned Newt into one of them!
Very small rocks.
“And how do you know shes a witch’’? “She turned me into a newt’’ “Ah, well. I got better’’.
Celebrate diversity.
But the barbaric nature of Islam does not concern them at all. ALRIGHTY!...
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