From the New York Times:
Published:
April 24, 1692April 24, 2010
SALEM, MASS.CAIRO — The sorcerer still has his head.But for how long?
For more than two years, Ali Hussain Sibat of Lebanon has been held in a prison in Saudi Arabia, convicted of sorcery and sentenced to death. His head is to be chopped off by an executioner wielding a long, curved sword.
His crime: manipulating spirits, predicting the future, concocting potions and conjuring spells on a call-in television show called “The Hidden” on a Lebanese channel, Scheherazade. It was, in effect, a Middle Eastern psychic hot line.
“Sorcery is the ability to influence matters that affect people’s lives through the use of spirits,” said Abdulaziz AlGasim, a retired Saudi judge. “It is impossible to prove such an act except through confession, and confessions are suspect.”
The authorities say that Mr. Sibat confessed.
We’ve made this mistake and 318 years later we’re not very proud of it. Let him go.
It’s good to know that the Ohio GOP thinks that cooking is a female task while being a congressperson is not.
has always interested me. This, also, from Wikipedia
Emphasis mine.
We may well be headed back to those days. I can see the Palins and Bachmanns and Tancredos amongst us carrying those stones.
Unless decency forbids.
Perhaps you don’t know that there are many Americans who currently believe in demon spirits. Sarah Palin belongs to a Christianist cult that practices “Spiritual Warfare” to root out and exorcise demons. Yes, really. They aren’t being metaphorical. They actually believe that the evil humans do (i.e., crimes/sins/deviations from their standards) are literally prompted (as in whispered from off-stage) by demons who are assigned to individuals and determined to lead them to damnation. God’s Angels stand by, helplessly, helpless I say… unless individuals pray to Jeezus and specifically ask for angelic protection.
Yes indeed. These demon believers may appear sane and normal in most circumstances except for recurrent outbursts of seemingly unwarranted prayer and invocations to Jeezus. They are entirely unaware that they are living variations of Flip Wilson’s classic comic riffs on “The Devil made me do it! Yes, he did. I saw that red dress and I just had to have it. He held a gun to my head and made me write that bad check!”
They are also unaware of the fact that they are practicing a classic form of ritual magic. They select a negative impulse from within themselves, project it, assign an “otherness” to it and then, thru invocations, banish it. On the inverse side, they see “goodness” as existing outside of themselves, visualize it as an angel and then, again thru invocations and evocations, invite the “good spirit” to possess their bodies.
The concept of personal responsibility is abhorrent to them. In their world view, all humans are hollow reeds, victimized by an ever-present war between demons and angels.
You mean this:
was used to condemn the innocent.
Anybody could fake out that some demonic presence was flying around the church/courtroom, or telling Goody Cloyce how to say the Lord’s Prayer or what not.
Spectral evidence? In their minds. I also don’t buy the bread mold theory that says that the girls were poisoned into throwing fits.
I pretty much love Three Sovereigns for Sarah with another target of right-wing choler, Vanessa Redgrave, especially for setting out plainly how all of this mess was a bid for several families to get over on a bunch of other families because of church disputes, primogeniture and probate issues, sheer greed, and bad blood that had been building for decades.
Don’t say ever it can’t happen again. These people will make sh*t up when it serves them.
And Tituba? She disappeared without a trace after being sold off for her owner’s debts. She may not have been black, but she was equipped with both black African and island Indian magics, which shows a lot how a disappearing native culture might live on in another.
I thought we weren’t supposed to disrespect the beliefs of idiots, so how can you tell them what to do with their witches? Especially when they have all that oil and buy all those death machines from us. Any hope that Jesus will sweep up these good theocrats along with their christianist counterparts when the damn apocalypse finally arrives? The world would be so incredibly better with all the righteous gone. And “God” will have only “himself” to blame when it turns out that eternity with all these assholes at “his” was a really bad idea.
.
MADINA, Saudi Arabia (Saudi Gazette) Apr. 26, 2010 – The Court of Cassation in Makkah has overturned a Shariah court’s death sentence for a magician, arguing that he should be given a “chance to repent”.
The 46-year-old Lebanese man, identified as Ali Hussein Subat, had appeared regularly on satellite television programs promoting sorcery, according to the Saudi authorities.
If he repents, his case will be reviewed by the General Court for lesser punishment. But if he does not, the Court of Cassation will approve the death penalty, the court statement said.
Subat is scheduled to appear before a panel of three judges within the next few days to undergo the repentance ritual in which the panel will ask him to denounce sorcery, express regret for having committed it, resolve never to return to it, and turn to Allah for forgiveness.
The Madina General Court delivered its death verdict of the Shariah-approved corporal punishment for the magician for committing a serious social crime other than murder. The magician was publicly known as a “Scheherazade Magician” for being a regular guest on a magic show of the Scheherazade satellite channel.
The verdict was reached after 10 sessions by three judges over a trial period of two years, during which they listened to a list of accusations, including acts of sorcery to separate married couples for a fee. Subat confessed to his illegal acts before the court.
The man was arrested in the central area of the Prophet’s Mosque in Madina on charges of practicing black magic. He was then found in possession of “talismans and herbal medicines used as magic materials,” the authorities said.
Subat was arrested by the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice – the Hai’a – in May 2008. He was sentenced to death in November of the same year.
Saudi executions
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
Guy was tortured into saying whatever.