A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced to death Palestinian poet and artist Ashraf Fayadh for apostasy (apostasy?) and other blasphemy-related offenses, including promoting atheism, in his 2008 poetry collection, Instructions Within. The 35-year-old was released on bail only to be arrested again on January 1, 2014, when he was sentenced to four years in prison and 800 lashes. After his attorneys appealed, judicial authorities decided to re-try his case before a new panel of judges, who sentenced Fayadh to death in November 2015.
According to Human Rights Watch, prosecutors charged him with a host of blasphemy-related charges, including: blaspheming “the divine self” and the Prophet Muhammad; spreading atheism and promoting it among the youth in public places; mocking the verses of God and the prophets; refuting the Quran; denying the day of resurrection; objecting to fate and divine decree; and having an illicit relationship with women and storing their pictures in his phone.
Isn’t it amazing how the “My religious views are a 100% right; yours are totally wrong” crowd keep popping up in history. The West had the same type of thing with the Inquisition. With the glut of oil and the need to use less of it anyway, do we need to kow-tow to this horrible Saudi regime and its Wahabi backers, who are the cause of a lot of the radicalization of Sunni moslems? Epicureans proudly affirm human freedom of thought. May this moment pass.
Why the silence about these beheadings?
Islamic State’s penchant for public beheadings has rightly caused revulsion, so why are so few voices being raised against Saudi Arabia? This year it has executed at least 151 people, the biggest annual total for two decades. A revered Shia religious leader was recently condemned to death for criticising the regime; his young nephew must also die for having taken part in anti-regime rallies. And now we await the execution of Ashraf Fayadh, a Palestinian poet and artist, who has enthralled critics with art shows he’s curated in Western countries. Two years ago the religious police charged Fayadh with blasphemy and illicit relationships with women (photos of him with female fellow artists were found on his phone), and he was sentenced to four years in jail and 800 lashes. That wasn’t enough for the Court of Appeal, however, which ordered a new trial. Now he’s to be beheaded. Some think the state is picking on him to keep all artists and writers in line; others think the police targeted him because he’d circulated a video of them roughing up a suspect. Whatever the motive, it’s deeply “hypocritical” for the West to remain silent about such vile travesties of justice. (Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich)
We should end our alliance with Saudi Arabia. Oil prices are so low now, we could cheaply import it from elsewhere with few repercussions. And even if oil prices were to rise, that would be worth it. I’m disguised by our support for a government that has done more to promote Islamic extremism than any other. And now the Saudis want to fund the construction of new mosques in Germany! We should stand with people like the Swedish foreign minister, Margot Wallstrom, who dare to criticise the regime.
But what about Iran? The Iranian government is just as despicable as the Saudi government- its highly intolerant, hates the West, and imposes a theocracy on what would otherwise be a relatively liberal people. Yet we are told that we need to work with them. I don’t really understand the difference between the two here.
Or Turkey? For some bizarre reason, Turkey remains a part of NATO, even when their government commits massive human rights abuses, and does dealings with ISIS- even though it has the military capacity to destroy it. The shooting down of the Russian plane shows that the Turks cannot be trusted.
The truth is, we do dealings with terrible regimes all the time. Sadly, if we didn’t, we would have very few friends. I don’t envy those in power, who have to make difficult decisions as to how to side with and who not to. The temptation to withdraw into the Epicurean garden is all-to-tempting, but I’m afraid I must resist. The current state of affairs is fascinating.