Saudi Arabia to execute woman for witchcraft

A leading international human rights organisation is calling on Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah to halt the planned execution of a woman accused of “witchcraft”.

The woman is due to be put to death on foot of a coerced confession and the statements of witnesses who said she had “bewitched” them.

One man claimed she had made him impotent. In another, a divorced woman reportedly returned to her ex-husband during the month predicted by the witch said to have cast the spell. The court failed to probe alternative explanations for these incidents.

Human Rights Watch has described the charges against her as “absurd” and says they have no basis in law.

“The fact that Saudi judges still conduct trials for unprovable crimes like ‘witchcraft’ underscores their inability to carry out objective criminal investigations,” said Joe Stork, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

“Fawza Falih’s case is an example of how the authorities failed to comply even with existing safeguards in the Saudi justice system,” he added.

The judges are said to have relied on Fawza Falih’s coerced confession and on the statements of witnesses who said she had “bewitched” them to convict her in April 2006.

Falih retracted her confession in court, claiming it was extracted under duress. She said that as an illiterate woman she did not understand the document she was forced to fingerprint.

She also stated in her appeal that her interrogators beat her during her 35 days in detention at the hands.

In November of last year Saudi Arabia executed pharmacist Mustafa Ibrahim for sorcery in Riyadh.

Clerics of Saudi Arabia’s austere form of Islam, known as Wahhabism, take accusations of sorcery seriously and recently held a conference in Riyadh on how to combat it.

Read Another Article

IRS investigates endorsement of Huckabee by pastor Wiley Drake
Fire in Doomsday sect bunker

Related News Articles Topic(s): Islam • Witchcraft Subscribe to Religion News Blog updates Subscribe to Religion News Blog [What is this?] Get Religion News Blog's headline by Email [What is this?] Follow Religion News Blog at Twitter Find Related Information Use our custom search engines to find additional research resources on religions and cults: ApologeticsSearch.com: Search for apologetics articles, books, videos, and other research resources across 135 Christian apologetics websites and blogs. CounterCultSearch.com: Search for information about (religious) cults, cult-like organizations, and cults experts -- as well as paranormal-, New Age, and pseudoscientific claims -- across 260+ websites, blogs and forums dedicated to cult research, spiritual abuse, ex-cult counseling & support. Find Related Religion & Spirituality Books at Amazon.com Islam Possibly related... or Most Popular Religion News Articles Kent Hovind: Evangelist arrested on federal charges Beast’s real mark devalued to ’616′ Muslim Woman Gives Sex Advice on Arab TV Michael Jackson Confirms Conversion to Islam Kent Hovind, ‘Dr. Dino,’ guilty on all counts The fall and rise of Carlton Pearson Search False prophet Harold Camping sets another date for rapture: May 21, 2011 Watch the film Theo van Gogh was murdered for Kent Hovind — Dr. Dino — sentenced to 10 years in prison

Search Religion News Blog