The Death Penalty, Capital Punishment and Judicial Bribery: A Political Analysis Of Saudi Beheadings, Electric Chair Executions And The Abolition Of The Death Penalty
It’s an ironic testament to the tragedy of the death penalty that only a few years ago in a European Community magazine, a small article was published entitled: ‘Corruption — the misuse of public power for private profit, has probably existed for as long as there has been public power. To eliminate corrupt officials and avaricious businessmen it would probably be necessary to change human nature.’ Today, in 2010, bribery, corruption and the death penalty seem to go hand in hand, regardless of the political regime or country of administration.
For example, in Saudi Arabia, a strict muslim country, the punishment for stealing is the cutting off of the thieves’ hands and feet, and the punishment for adultery – death by beheading with a sword, a gruesome and brutal form of punishment where the victims arms and legs are bound together, before being made to kneel and the sword beheading the victim before a watching crowd. This is carried out every Thursday following afternoon prayers in Mecca.
While many of those familiar with international trade and commerce would agree with the often heard statement ‘bribery is not condoned anywhere in the world, even in countries where it is a general practice.’ A wide range of different words and expressions are used to cover bribes and bribery. In Saudi Arabia it is not only customary but part of the culture and of social customs and practices and not in any way considered different from giving a tip for special services provided, except that in the case of bribes, such payments are usually expected to be made in advance.
Saudi beheadings generally take place after quick, unfair legal trials that have been condemned by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as an affront to Human Rights. Disproportionate numbers of poor black Africans and Phillipino immigrants who can’t afford the legal fees for a decent lawyer, or a bribe to pay off the judge, are routinely slaughted in Saudi Arabia – guilty of dubious crimes like ‘sorcercy’, ‘being a witch’ and ‘adultery’.
Take the recent example of Ali Sibat, the Lebanese TV presenter, arrested in May 2008 in the deeply religious city of Medina, Saudi Arabia on charges of ‘sorcery’, following a brief trial. Sibat, 49, a Lebanese father of five children was on a spiritual journey to Medina, one of the holiest cities of the Islamic world – (and a route that many muslims make each year) – when Saudi Arabia’s religious police, known as the ‘Committee for the promotion of Morals and prevention of Vice’, stormed his hotel room to arrest him on charges of ‘sorcery’. His crime? Sibat had been a psychic TV host of a lebanese television program called Sheherazade, where he’d been making live television predictions to viewers calling, something like a Mystic Meg or cable TV agony uncle, giving advice for entertainment.
In Lebanon, and most countries, such TV shows are seen as innocent entertainment, but in Saudia Arabia, even though Sibat’s programs were never broadcast to this region, this is labelled ‘sorcery’, a crime that makes the TV host ‘corrupt on earth’ and punishable by death. As of April 27th 2010, Mr Sibat is still alive, but it remains to be seen whether he will be released after international pressure.
Juxtapose this medieval torture, to other parts of the world, where the death penalty is still carried out. For instance, in some American States, the electric chair is still offered as a statutory law; although most now use lethal injection as the primary method of death. In May 2010, Paul Warner Powell, 31 years old, was put to death in Virginia’s Electric Chair for fatally stabbing 16-year-old Stacie Reed of Manassa. Next week, Ronnie Lee Gardner will be executed by firing squad in the U.S. State of Utah.
Whatever the method of execution, it’s time that the world move on from the Nazi style gas chambers, and crude islamic tortures and executions. In a new book being published by Schiel & Denver Book Publishers (http://www.schieldenver.com/) historian Richard Atley examines the realities of bribery and corruption in relation to the global death penalty, and considers ways in which local governments and judiciaries can respond and do more to exact fair legal systems which omit the ultimate degrading sanction which should be banned outright – the death penalty.
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