Top of the Chops KSA keeps lopping

[david44]

Saudi Arabia: beheadings reach highest level in two decades | World news | The Guardian
Saudi Arabia carried out at least 157 executions in 2015, with beheadings reaching their highest level in the kingdom in two decades, according to several advocacy groups that monitor the death penalty worldwide.

Coinciding with the rise in executions is the number of people executed for non-lethal offences that judges have discretion to rule on, particularly for drug-related crimes.


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Amnesty International said in November that at least 63 people had been executed since the start of the year for drug-related offences. That figure made up at least 40% of the total number of executions in 2015, compared to less than 4% for drug-related executions in 2010.

Amnesty said Saudi Arabia had exceeded its highest level of executions since 1995, when 192 executions were recorded.

While some crimes, such as premeditated murder, carry fixed punishments under Saudi Arabia’s interpretation of the Islamic law, or Shariah, drug-related offences are considered “ta’zir”, meaning neither the crime nor the punishment is defined in Islam.

Discretionary judgments for “ta’zir” crimes have led to arbitrary rulings with contentious outcomes.

In a lengthy report issued in August, Amnesty International noted the case of Lafi al-Shammari, a Saudi national with no previous criminal record who was executed in mid-2015 for drug trafficking. The person arrested with him and charged with the same offences received a 10-year prison sentence, despite having prior arrests related to drug trafficking.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) found that of the first 100 prisoners executed in 2015, 56 had been based on judicial discretion and not for crimes for which Islamic law mandates a specific death penalty punishment.

Shariah scholars hold vastly different views on the application of the death penalty, particularly for cases of “ta’zir.”

Delphine Lourtau, research director at Cornell Law School’s Death Penalty Worldwide, adds that there are Shariah law experts “whose views are that procedural safeguards surrounding capital punishment are so stringent that they make death penalty almost virtually impossible.”

She says in Saudi Arabia, defendants are not provided defence lawyers and in numerous cases of South Asians arrested for drug trafficking, they are not provided translators in court hearings. She said there are also questions “over the degree of influence the executive has on trial outcomes” when it comes to cases where Shia activists are sentenced to death.

Emory Law professor and Shariah scholar Abdullahi An-Naim said because there is an “inherent infallibility in court systems,” no judicial system can claim to enforce an immutable, infallible form of Shariah.

“There is a gap between what Islam is and what Islam is as understood by human beings,” he said. “Shariah was never intended to be coercively applied by the state.”

Similar to how the US Constitution is seen as a living document with interpretations that have expanded over the years, more so is the Quran, which serves as a cornerstone of Shariah, he said.

Of Islam’s four major schools of thought, the underpinning of Saudi Arabia’s legal system is based on the most conservative Hanbali branch and an ideology widely known as Wahhabism.

A 2005 royal decree issued in Saudi Arabia to fight drugs further codified the right of judges to issue execution sentences “as a discretionary penalty” against any person found guilty of smuggling, receiving, or manufacturing narcotics.

HRW’s Middle East researcher Adam Coolge said Saudi Arabia executed 158 people in total in 2015 compared to 90 the year before.

Catherine Higham, a caseworker for Reprieve, which works against the death penalty worldwide, says her organisation documented 157 executions in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia does not release annual tallies, though it does announce individual executions in state media throughout the year.

Saudi law allows for execution in cases of murder, drug offenses and rape. Though seldom carried out, the death penalty also applies to adultery, apostasy and witchcraft.

In defense of how Saudi Arabia applies Shariah, the kingdom’s representative to the UN Human Rights Council, Bandar al-Aiban, said in an address in Geneva in March that capital punishment applies “only (to) those who commit heinous crimes that threaten security.”

Because Saudi Arabia carries out most executions through beheading and sometimes in public, it has been compared to the extremist Islamic State group, which also carries out public beheadings and claims to be implementing Shariah.

Saudi Arabia strongly rejects this. In December, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters in Paris “it’s easy to say Wahhabism equals Daesh equals terrorism, which is not true.” Daesh is the Arabic acronym for the IS group.

Unlike the extrajudicial beheadings IS carries out against hostages and others, the kingdom says its judiciary process requires at least 13 judges at three levels of court to rule in favor of a death sentence before it is carried out. Saudi officials also argue executions are aimed at combating crime.

Even with the kingdom’s record level of executions in 2015, Amnesty International says China, where information about the death penalty is a “state secret,” is believed to execute more individuals that the rest of the world’s figures combined.

Reprieve says that in Iran, more than 1,000 people were executed in 2015. Another organization called Iran Human Rights, which is based in Oslo, Norway, and closely follows executions, said at least 648 people had been executed in the first six months of 2015 in the Islamic Republic, with more than two-thirds for drug offenses.

Reprieve says Pakistan has executed at least 315 people in 2015, after the country lifted a moratorium on executions early last year following a December 2014 Taliban attack on a school that killed 150 people, most of them children. Only a fraction of those executed since then have been people convicted of a terrorist attack.

[HermantheGerman]

Now that's what I call a great start into the New Year !

Chop Chop

Saudi Arabia executes 47 people, incl prominent Shiite cleric, on terror charges

Published time: 2 Jan, 2016 07:24


Saudi Arabia has executed 47 people for terrorism, including the prominent Shi'ite Muslim cleric Nimr al-Nimr, the Interior Ministry said Saturday. Most of those executed were said to be involved in a series of attacks carried out by Al Qaeda between 2003 and 2006.
Iran has warned that executing Nimr "would cost Saudi Arabia dearly," Reuters reported.
Nimr, along with six others, were accused of orchestrating anti-government protests between 2011 and 2013 in which 20 people died. Earlier this year, the kingdom's Supreme Court rejected an appeal against the death sentence passed on the Shia cleric.

https://www.rt.com/news/327698-saudi...error-charges/

[david44]

Well great if you wish to butcher the innocent and petty criminals, should similar practice be handed to Mods there'd be few left

[Stinky]

I wonder if they played Oranges and Lemons as kids too?

[david44]

I wonder if they played Oranges and Lemons as kids too?

Oddly that very child's rhyme wws in my mind viewing the pooppys at the tower where English public executions used to happen.For those of other backgrounds it was schoolyard skipping rhyme pre app belived to refer to the Great plague of 1665

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oranges_and_Lemons

When I was lad in realtively prosperous Europe these were luxury goods in post war rationing, the slice of lemon in my dads G and T was a wafer and while Oranges were readily available eating more than one was a treat.

Words
Oranges and lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clement's.

You owe me five farthings,
Say the bells of St. Martin's.

When will you pay me?
Say the bells of Old Bailey.

When I grow rich,
Say the bells of Shoreditch.

When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney.

I do not know,
Says the great bell of Bow.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head![1]

(verse 2)
Pancakes and fritters,
Say the bells of Saint Peter's.

Two sticks and an apple,
Say the bells of Whitechapel

Old Father Baldpate,
Say the bells of Aldgate.

Pokers and tongs,
Say the bells of Saint John's.

Kettles and pans,
Say the bells of Saint Ann's.

Brickbats and tiles,
Say the great bells of Saint Giles'.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
Here comes a candle to light you to bed

-----
All above churches were on my rounds around the city of London

Cockneys were defined as someone born within the sound of Bow Bells, although silenced for long the term later became synonamous with old ILEA working class as personified by the Pearlies,Lambeth Walk and so on .Since the blitz when many families lost homes or were rehoused in Essex Thamesmead and Herfordshire the term is anachronistic and very few in Islington Hoxton or Silicone roundabout would aspire to be cockney which is used oft to portray a DelBoy/Arthur Daley chav/spiv character

Having worked as boy in a factory with real Cockneys in Betnal Green they had a great earthy sense of humour,one of my wedding guests has snap sitting on Reggie Krays knee in Margate and the gang funerals were something to behold.The Blind Beggar next to Truman's brewery was like Dodge City to a spotty teenager, loading the crates, happy memories and I felt far safer there then than today with its gang turf wars and barely a word of English spoken.

As a non Englishman it's wierd that I feel safer and more at home here than where I grew up

[david44]

The older version is less popular for obvious reasons

London Bells Nursery Rhyme

"Gay go up and gay go down
To Ring the Bells of London Town
"Oranges and Lemons" say the Bells of St. Clements
"Bullseyes and Targets" say the Bells of St. Margaret's
"Brickbats and Tiles" say the Bells of St. Giles
"Halfpence and Farthings" say the Bells of St. Martin's
"Pancakes and Fritters" say the Bells of St. Peter's
"Two Sticks and an Apple" say the Bells of Whitechapel
"Maids in white aprons" say the Bells at St. Katherine's
"Pokers and Tongs" say the Bells of St. John's
"Kettles and Pans" say the Bells of St. Anne's
"Old Father Baldpate" say the slow Bells of Aldgate
"You owe me Ten Shillings" say the Bells of St. Helen's
"When will you Pay me?" say the Bells of Old Bailey
"When I grow Rich" say the Bells of Shoreditch
"Pray when will that be?" say the Bells of Stepney
"I do not know" say the Great Bell of Bow
Gay go up and gay go down
To Ring the Bells of London Town

[HermantheGerman]

Well great if you wish to butcher the innocent and petty criminals, should similar practice be handed to Mods there'd be few left

Why are you so surprised ? The fuse has been laid for the House of Saud and Iran. Now lets see how long the fuse is, just a matter of time.