Saudi Arabia is again reminding the world of the medieval demands of its religious, Sharia legal system. Recently, Saudi Arabia enacted a law making atheism a form of terrorism. It was an act that reaffirmed the Kingdom as one of the most oppressive government’s in terms of free speech and free exercise of religion. The law was particularly ironic since Saudi Arabia and its extreme Wahhabi brand of Islam has been a major contributor to Islamic extremist and terrorism around the world. However, it is atheism that the Kingdom believes is the source of terrorism. Making good on that threat, a Saudi court has sentenced an atheist to 10 years in prison and 2,000 lashes for expressing his views on Twitter posts.
The widely ridiculed Saudi religious police have been monitoring social networks for people expressing their faith or lack of faith. In Saudi Arabia, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is a religious police force that has been a constant presence in the Kingdom arresting woman having coffee with colleagues or forcing young girls to burn to death in fire rather than run out without their scarves. Then there was the time that the religious police in Dammam marched into a popular dinosaur exhibit and shut it down without any explanation of why the dinosaurs threatened the virtue of good Muslims. Then there was the flogging of a women who insulted them. Then there are the round ups of religious people for simply praying at home. Then there is the arrest of a man for standing in line with his wife at a grocery store. Then there is the arrest of young men for simply dancing at a birthday party. The list goes on and on.
In this case, a 28-year-old man admitted to being an atheist and refused to repent. He insisted that he had a human right to speak about his own religious or anti-religious values. For that he will be jailed for 10 years and given 2,000 lashes as well as pay a fine for 20,000 riyals, about $5,300. Saudi Arabia of course is the first state to object to any slight or interference with the right of Muslims to worship in other countries. Our leading ally in the Middle East bars the construction of any church or non-Islamic religious place of worship in the Kingdom. While it continues to inspire Islamic extremists with its Wahhabi teachings, it has pursued atheists as terrorists because they want to go on the Internet to discuss their values and beliefs.
Although too late for this brave young atheist, the law instituted would seem to be a perfect road to citizenship in America for just about any Saudi.
All they have to do is get to America, or maybe the Embassy, and declare to them they are atheists.
Then there is no question that we must by law give them asylum.
Americans are REALLY going to be angry at the Saudis when and IF the 28 pages of the Joint Congressional Investigation into 9/11 are ever declassified. If Americans ever did learn the truth about 911, they would demanding the prosecution of the Bushes and the total and permanent termination of the Saudi empire. So, I don’t expect those documents to ever be released in order that the guilty remain protected.
Trump, to his credit, has brought those papers to the public’s attention, when the media, the government, and virtually everyone else demands total silence on the issue. But I doubt that even Trump would push the envelope that far if he becomes president. The last president to push the envelope, and who threated to splinter the CIA “into a thousand pieces” found out on November 22, 1963 just how powerful the murderous cabal running the US Government really is — and with the power to cover-up their crimes and silence everyone about them to this day.
@Karen S
I have to disagree with you. The reality is that today’s, “reformers” are tomorrow’s “destroyers.” All Saudi Arabia has to do is look at America, and Europe, and why wouldn’t they go to extremes towards people who who buck the cultural norm??? Those same people, egs. the atheists, will have absolutely no compunctions tomorrow about driving Islam out of public life in Saudi Arabia.
There is an idea I call “Squeeky’s Paradox of Civilization”, which states, “At some point in its development, the more a society tries to become civilized, the less civilized it becomes.”
As an example, take capital punishment. America tried to become “more civilized” in the 1960’s and only occasionally execute criminals, and then only for certain types of murder. As a result, our prisons became more crowded, and we ended up having more criminally violent people in the country. Chicago has about 500 murders per year, and zero executions.
Because of Islam, and its religious beliefs, this is how the two countries stack up:
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Saudi-Arabia/United-States/Crime
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Yet another exhibit of nationalized extremism in the Middle East. Freedom of speech and freedom of religion are basic human rights.
2,000 lashes can be a slow death sentence. At the very least it will be disfiguring, and will damage the musculature along the rib cage and spine.
Physically harming someone and imprisoning them, under color of law, merely for disagreeing with the state religion is one of the universally accepted signatures of extremism. As is forcing innocent young girls to burn to death in excruciating pain because they were not permitted to leave without their hijab (or whatever the relevant veil was at the school.) Having been born and raised in freedom, I just cannot wrap my mind around millions of people tolerating, nay internalizing, such violent extremism.
So sad. That poor man. I always say change must come from within, but look at what reformers face.
Don’t let Texas hear about this………….
I guess they don’t have our constitution now do they. I’m glad we do.
Do we really need control of the oil fields that badly?
All you need is Love!
dun dun dunta do.
All you need is Love!
dun dun dunta do.
All you ever need, all you ever need.
etc
Except in Saudi Arabia where what you need is an escape plan. What a frigin donkey state.
You gotta look at this from Saudi Arabia’s point of view. Today, it’s some twit preaching atheism, and tomorrow it’s that same kind of twit trying to get the daily prayers and the Koran banned from classrooms. From our country’s experience, it would make sense for Saudi Arabia to decapitate the dude, and nip the crap in the bud.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Reblogged this on Cyber Report.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/09/saudi-ties-to-911.html
Why Saudi Ties to 9/11 Mean U.S. Ties to 9/11
Media interest in Saudi Arabian connections to the crimes of 9/11 has centered on calls for the release of the 28 missing pages from the Joint Congressional Inquiry’s report. However, those calls focus on the question of hijacker financing and omit the most interesting links between the 9/11 attacks and Saudi Arabia—links that implicate powerful people in the United States. Here are twenty examples.
Oh come on guys. You cant complain about Saudi Arabia. They are the heads of the United Nations Human Rights Council.
https://theintercept.com/2015/09/23/u-s-state-department-welcomes-news-close-ally-saudi-arabia-chosen-head-u-n-human-rights-council-panel/
U.S. State Department “Welcomes” News That Saudi Arabia Will Head U.N. Human Rights Panel
Last week’s announcement that Saudi Arabia — easily one of the world’s most brutally repressive regimes — was chosen to head a U.N. Human Rights Council panel provoked indignation around the world. That reaction was triggered for obvious reasons. Not only has Saudi Arabia executed more than 100 people already this year, mostly by beheading (a rate of 1 execution every two days), and not only is it serially flogging dissidents, but it is reaching new levels of tyrannical depravity as it is about to behead and then crucify the 21-year-old son of a prominent regime critic, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, who was convicted at the age of 17 of engaging in demonstrations against the government.
Most of the world may be horrified at the selection of Saudi Arabia to head a key U.N. human rights panel, but the U.S. State Department most certainly is not. Quite the contrary: its officials seem quite pleased about the news. At a State Department briefing yesterday afternoon, Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner was questioned by the invaluable Matt Lee of AP, and this is the exchange that resulted:
QUESTION: Change topic? Saudi Arabia.
MR. TONER: Saudi Arabia.
QUESTION: Yesterday, Saudi Arabia was named to head the Human Rights Council, and today I think they announced they are about to behead a 21-year-old Shia activist named Muhammed al-Nimr. Are you aware of that?
MR. TONER: I’m not aware of the trial that you — or the verdict — death sentence.
QUESTION: Well, apparently, he was
Saudi Arabia is to be found in the armpit of the world, along with a few other countries. OK we need to be reminded but America has its own problems. How about focusing on our dysfunctional situation.
Hence the absolute importance of secularism in government.