It has been reported that on November 9 a Lebanese man on a religious pilgrimage to Medina, Saudi Arabia was sentenced to death for the crime of witchcraft.
Ali Sibat was visiting Saudi Arabia last year when he was charged with the crime in relation to a television show that he hosts. Sky News reports that the only evidence against him was footage of his Lebanese television show in which he gives life advice and makes predictions about the future.
According to Sarah Leah Whitson Middle East director at Human Rights Watch:
Saudi courts are sanctioning a literal witch hunt by the religious police.
The crime of witchcraft is being used against all sorts of behavior, with the cruel threat of state sanctioned executions.
A number of similar cases have appeared before Saudi courts, including a Saudi man who was accused of smuggling a “book of witchcraft” into the kingdom (his trial is presently underway), and an Asian man who was arrested for “sorcery” and “charlatanry” for allegedly using supernatural powers to help solve marital problems and make people fall in love.
In an equally absurd ruling, Eritrean man Muhammad Burhan, was convicted of “charlatanry” for his possession of a phone book that contained words written using the Tigrinya alphabet. Tigrinya is used by some 6 million people who live in Ethiopia, central Eritrea and Israel.
The court accepted that Burhan’s phone book was a “talisman” and sentenced him to 20 months prison and 300 lashes.
All of these cases might be dismissed as laughable in their stupidity were it not for the fact that people are actually being executed, imprisoned and beaten. If history tells us anything it is that this sort of nonsense is superstitious at best and opportunistic at worst.
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Images: Top, a scene from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible; Next page, the tombstones of the victims of the Salem Massachusetts witch trials (source).
