Man sentenced to death for sorcery.

[AxisMundi]

i am not selling

.

No, you just haunt internet forums forwarding your religion.

 

[.lava]

No, you just haunt internet forums forwarding your religion.

seems like it is only you who can't stand diversity. besides, this is really getting more annoying. stop it, please. you want to discuss, fine. but don't make it personal.

thank you

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[Mr Spinkles]

Torture​

''I told my investigators... 'What crime do you have against me?'... Their answer was nothing else but beating me... They tied my hands behind my back, then they shackled my legs, then tied my hands to my feet. After, they pulled me flat on the ground and then they started​

beating me. This was their answer.''​

​

A political prisoner held in Saudi Arabia in 1996 spoke these words. He and many other former prisoners have revealed a culture of police brutality, torture and ill-treatment in many police stations, prisons and detention centres across the country. Beatings with sticks, electric shocks, cigarette burns and nail-pulling are some of the torture methods often described.​

​

Saudi Arabia's criminal justice system facilitates torture. Lack of judicial supervision of arrest and detention, denial of prompt access to relatives and a doctor, and no access to lawyers all leave prisoners extremely vulnerable to abuse. Torture is used to extract confessions and to enforce discipline.​

Document - Saudi Arabia: Torture: Culture of brutality | Amnesty International [emphasis added]

Therefore the old woman is put in prison. ... the investigator has his snoopers, often depraved and infamous, ferret out all her past life. This, of course, cannot be done without turning up some saying or doing of hers which men so disposed can easily twist or distort into evidence of witchcraft.
...
And so she is hurried to the torture, unless, as often happens, she was tortured on the very day of her arrest. In these trials nobody is allowed a lawyer or any means of fair defense, for witchcraft is reckoned an exceptional crime of such enormity that all rules of legal procedure may be suspended... Even though she denies these charges and satisfactorily answers every accusation, no attention is paid and her replies are not even recorded.
...
They start with the first degree, i.e., the less severe torture. Although exceedingly severe, it is light compared to those tortures which follow. Wherefore if she confesses, they say the woman has confessed without torture! Now, what prince can doubt her guilt when he is told she has confessed voluntarily, without torture?
...
On the other hand, if she does not die under torture, and if some exceptionally scrupulous judge hesitates to torture her further without fresh proofs or to burn her without her confession, she is kept in prison and more harshly chained, there to rot until she yields, even if it take a whole year.

From Cautio Criminalis, written by Friedrich von Spee, Jesuit priest who heard the confessions of accused witches, 1631.

To reiterate what happened to Mr. Sibat, according to Amnesty: "After he was arrested, 'Ali Hussain Sibat's interrogators told him to write down what he did for a living, reassuring him that, if he did so, he would be allowed to go home after a few weeks. This document was presented in court as a "confession" and used to convict him. He was sentenced to death by a court in Madina on 9 November 2009 after secret court hearings where he had no legal representation or assistance."

Now remember, Mr. Sibat was arrested in May 2008. He was sentenced to death on 9 November 2009. What I would like to know is, how was Mr. Sibat treated during this 1 year and 6 month detention (now going on 2 years)? Was he tortured, as happened in other cases in Saudi Arabia? How long was it before he confessed on video? Isn't is possible, that the man merely had unorthodox religious beliefs and practices which are perfectly legal in Lebanon, and he expected to be deported if he admitted this; but after obtaining this confirmation of unorthodoxy, some over-zealous religious police tortured him and pressured him for weeks, and without access to the outside world over a period of months, Mr. Sibat eventually confessed on video to whatever fantastic miracles his interrogators suggested?

 

[AxisMundi]

seems like it is only you who can't stand diversity. besides, this is really getting more annoying. stop it, please. you want to discuss, fine. but don't make it personal.

thank you

.

Coming from a muslim, your statements are absolutely hilarious.

I enjoy diversety, I do not enjoy having people ram their religion down other people's throats as the "one true religion".

Added in Edt:

And I'm sure people who ahve died in the name of your religion don't appreciate Islam's compelte and utter lack of acceptance of other religious beliefs either.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

The BBC reports on one case where, according to its evidence, torture was used to force awkward video confessions of Westerners for killing other Westerners in a series of bombings in Saudi Arabia, and they were convicted solely on the basis of their confessions and no other evidence: BBC NEWS | Programmes | Correspondent | Saudi Arabia: State of denial

However, the Saudi foreign minister Prince Faisal adamantly denied torture was involved.

 

[.lava]

Coming from a muslim, your statements are absolutely hilarious.

I enjoy diversety, I do not enjoy having people ram their religion down other people's throats as the "one true religion".

Added in Edt:

And I'm sure people who ahve died in the name of your religion don't appreciate Islam's compelte and utter lack of acceptance of other religious beliefs either.

what does even "Muslim" mean to you? is that name enough to judge individuals you don't know personally? you either read my replies and respond them and don't confuse me with your own inner thinking cycle's puppet or leave me alone. you're talking to yourself, not me

.

 

[AxisMundi]

what does even "Muslim" mean to you? is that name enough to judge individuals you don't know personally? you either read my replies and respond them and don't confuse me with your own inner thinking cycle's puppet or leave me alone. you're talking to yourself, not me

.

I answer your comments as YOU utter them.

Your strawman knocked itself down, BTW.

 

[.lava]

I answer your comments as YOU utter them.

Your strawman knocked itself down, BTW.

friend, you lost me. i don't know what you are talking about anymore

.

 

[maro]

It's wrong because the evidence is against it.

But I do accept a hypothesis that virtually every reputable scientist accepts, because an enormous body of research supports it.

What I am telling you (and I do not expect you to take my word for it) is that a huge body of research, spanning hundreds of years, supports my hypothesis.

it has practically been disproved and this is taken for granted.

Fair enough ,MS

Somehow i doubt the huge body of research you are talking about...and i feel you are exagerating...but i might be wrong

I would like to know how were those studies done ? did they bring magicians and ask them to do their magic ? what was the most recent study ?

I would like to see evidence and scientific papers that convince me that it's taken for granted as you say

I will learn something new if I see new evidence. And so will you, unless it's evidence that contradicts your revelation because according to you evidence is secondary. Am I wrong?

No ,the evidence is primary to me....it's just the revealation is my primary evidence....an idea that seem very hard for you to grasp ,i know

 

[AxisMundi]

friend, you lost me. i don't know what you are talking about anymore

.

I'll wait for you to catch up then.

 

[maro]

...because I think it's wrong to execute a foreign national for pretending to be Gandalf from Lord of the Rings.

what you think is wrong doesn't matter to me ,MS...nor to any muslim....it only matters to you

Acceptable, as in, do they have the right to do this? I think so. I wouldn't like it, and I would use counter-diplomacy and I don't think this would go anywhere.

Me too..i think we should use counter diplomacy with anyone telling us what to do in our countries....and i don't think this would go anywhere

OTOH if there was no evidence for a particular idea in my book, I would have to admit that part must be unfounded or erroneous.

This applies exactly to my medical books ,btw....but not to the Quran....if there's something in the quran that hasn't been proved scietifically yet....it doesn't matter to me

I realize how hard is this for you to live with...but again ,this what basically make us muslims...and it's not going to change ,i guarantee for you

Right. Murder doesn't violate the laws of physics and there are no cases of people stabbing each other, and nothing happens, it's all imaginary. There are plenty of cases of people trying to cast spells on each other, and nothing happens

Very true...it's part of my creed as a muslim to believe that there are plenty of cases of people trying to cast spells on others ,and nothing happens....however , the man is being punished for the practice....not for being cabable of harming others...because Allah alone is capable of benefiting and harming

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Fair enough ,MS

Somehow i doubt the huge body of research you are talking about...and i feel you are exagerating...but i might be wrong

I would like to know how were those studies done ? did they bring magicians and ask them to do their magic ? what was the most recent study ?

I would like to see evidence and scientific papers that convince me that it's taken for granted as you say

Fair enough. Here's one example: In 1988 the U.S. Army sponsored a committee from the National Academies of Science to evaluate parapsychology (ESP, telekinesis, etc.) You can read their full report (Part III Parapsychological Techniques) here: Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Theories, and Techniques

They concluded:

[SIZE=+0][SIZE=+0]The committee finds no scientific justification from research conducted over a period of 130 years, for the existence of parapsychological phenomena. In the committee's view, the best scientific evidence does not justify the conclusion that ESP——that is, gathering information about objects or thoughts without the intervention of known sensory mechanisms——exists. Nor does scientific evidence offer support for the existence of psychokinesis——that is, the influence of thoughts upon objects without the intervention of known physical processes.
[/SIZE][/SIZE]​

Here's a short documentary produced by Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine, on the topic of "remote viewing"... watch part 2 of the video to see the results of the experiment:
[youtube]40QVp8_P0LY[/youtube]
YouTube - Michael Shermer Remote Viewing Experiment Part 1

Organizations like the Skeptics Society, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and the James Randi Educational Foundation do controlled experiments to test psychic and paranormal claims all the time. This article gives an introduction to "dowsing": Library, The Matter of Dowsing You should really read this, especially the part that explains the ideomotor effect, a fascinating psychological reflex that we all have, which sometimes plays tricks on us.
And here you can find a an experiment on people claiming to have X-Ray vision, and people who believe they are dowsers: http://www.randi.org/pdf/swift1-2.pdf

The Science and Rationalists' Association of India do a lot of work testing the magical claims of healers. On their website you can watch a video where they test a healer's claim to be able to cure venomous snake bites by driving out evil spirits. People believe in these healers because many snakes are non-venomous and many others are not always deadly, so sometimes the healer's magical powers appear to work. However, the Indian skeptics say 20,000 Indians die each year from snake bites because they sought out magical healing instead of proper care: The Freethinker - Official Website of Science and Rationalists’ Association of India & Humanists' Association

You might also be interested in some of the anthropological studies of witchcraft in various societies, for example in four different African tribes: JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie Here's an excerpt describing their observations:

Both groups, too, firmly believe in witchcraft; several grave incidents showing the strength of the beleifs occurred even during the period of field work among the two tribes. Both conceive of witchcraft as unequivocally evil, as destroying life, mainly through mysterious wasting diseases, and as implying the power of witches to "eat" the "life-soul" of their victims. Witches are active at night and cannot be seen or discovered by ordinary means. Everything connected with witchcraft takes place in a fantasy realm which is, almost ex hypothesi, intangible and beyond empirical verification. This is shown most clearly in the tenet that it is only the "shadow-souls" of witches which roam about and attack victims, while their bodies remain asleep at home, thus deceiving any ordinary attempts at proving, or disproving, these mystic activities.
...
One case history and one legend may be quoted. The former concerns a young man from a village on the river Niger who one night suddenly disappeared. A body which the police had good reason to believe was his was later fished out of the river; but the people refused to accept this "natural" explanation, maintaining that the young man had been spirited away by a witch. Suspicion at once fell on an elderly wealthy woman whose house the young man had frequently been visiting ...
​

In all these years of field work I don't think I could find one case in the literature where an anthropologist actually reported evidence of "real" witchcraft. Here's a whole book on anthropological research of witchcraft in various cultures, Witchcraft Accusations and Confessions, published by the Social Anthropology Society. In all this research, you can find lots of accusations and confessions of witchcraft from many cultures, but no evidence of "real" witchcraft is ever observed, although they report many cases of paranoia and superstition.

No ,the evidence is primary to me....it's just the revealation is my primary evidence....an idea that seem very hard for you to grasp ,i know

Not hard to grasp at all, just hard to believe. Mormons have their revelations, too, you don't believe them do you?

what you think is wrong doesn't matter to me ,MS...nor to any muslim....it only matters to you

Why are you trying so hard to show you don't care about my opinions? Who are you trying to convince? I am responding to the OP. This is an open discussion forum. If you don't care to have a discussion, no problem, no one is forcing you. I'll continue discussing with whomever is interested.

Me too..i think we should use counter diplomacy with anyone telling us what to do in our countries....and i don't think this would go anywhere

Okay.

This applies exactly to my medical books ,btw....but not to the Quran....if there's something in the quran that hasn't been proved scietifically yet....it doesn't matter to me

Okay, it doesn't matter to you. Is that what this thread is about? Whether it matters to maro?

I realize how hard is this for you to live with...but again ,this what basically make us muslims...and it's not going to change ,i guarantee for you

It's not hard for me to live with. It might be hard for Mr. Sibat and others who are falsely convicted to live with.

Very true...it's part of my creed as a muslim to believe that there are plenty of cases of people trying to cast spells on others ,and nothing happens....however , the man is being punished for the practice....not for being cabable of harming others...because Allah alone is capable of benefiting and harming

For the practice of doing ..... what, exactly? I keep asking, no answers. What were the "tools" found in his possession? A wizard staff? A child's Pokemon doll? Was there an ace of spades up his sleeve?

 

[kai]

In March 2008, Human Rights Watch asked a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Justice to clarify the definition of the crime of witchcraft in Saudi Arabia and the evidence necessary for a court to prove such a crime. The official confirmed that no legal definition exists and could not clarify what evidence has probative value in witchcraft trials. Saudi Arabia has no penal code and in almost all cases gives judges the discretion to define acts they deem criminal and to set attendant punishments.


UNHCR | Refworld | Saudi Arabia: Witchcraft and Sorcery Cases on the Rise



Lucy Ash spoke to Samira Sbatt, and also to Christophe Wilcke, a Saudi Arabia expert from Human Rights Watch.





http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/2009/12/091218_outlook_sorcery_saudi.shtml

 

[Tiapan]

no, they were servants of God, proxies. they never got help from any other creature to show off. miracle belongs to God and miracle and magick are not the same thing

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You may have that opinion however would you like to prove what you have just stated. To me they along with anyone who believe in fictitious hocus pocus and I include all religions here are all the same.

It worries the hell out of me that over half the worlds population has not advanced since the stone age.

Ask the commuters on the Moscow Metro this morning if ideology of religious nature is good for human advancement and cooperation. Looks to me that two more female BELIEVERS demonstrated Islam = Peace NOT.
Reminds me of the Queen of hearts in Alice in Wonderland. Off with their heads... Off with their heads. It makes me so frustrated at their total ignorance and stupidity.

Why do the religious deliberately reject truth in favor of fairy tales.

Cheers

 

[.lava]

You may have that opinion however would you like to prove what you have just stated. To me they along with anyone who believe in fictitious hocus pocus and I include all religions here are all the same.

It worries the hell out of me that over half the worlds population has not advanced since the stone age.

Ask the commuters on the Moscow Metro this morning if ideology of religious nature is good for human advancement and cooperation. Looks to me that two more female BELIEVERS demonstrated Islam = Peace NOT.
Reminds me of the Queen of hearts in Alice in Wonderland. Off with their heads... Off with their heads. It makes me so frustrated at their total ignorance and stupidity.

Why do the religious deliberately reject truth in favor of fairy tales.

Cheers

what truth do you think i am rejecting?

.

 

[Sahar]

Why are you trying so hard to show you don't care about my opinions? Who are you trying to convince? I am responding to the OP. This is an open discussion forum. If you don't care to have a discussion, no problem, no one is forcing you. I'll continue discussing with whomever is interested.

Okay, it doesn't matter to you. Is that what this thread is about? Whether it matters to maro?

I don't think she is speaking about the forum. I agree with what she says. What should matter to a Muslim is revelation, not what you or anyone else think especially the materialistic kuffar.

 

[JustWondering]

Saudi Arabia has no penal code and in almost all cases gives judges the discretion to define acts they deem criminal and to set attendant punishments.

Wow, who decides who the judges are? Thats a lot of power for one person to have over others. I think it would be best just to stay away from backward superstitious countries like Saudi Arabia altogether.

 

[Tiapan]

what truth do you think i am rejecting?

.

The truth of the universe and nature

Cheers

 

[Muffled]

Magic destroyed America.

Here's proof.
[youtube][youtube]CxUGR8vc8NE[/youtube]
YouTube - America - You can do magic[youtube]

They were so much better before this.

Didn't America break up because one of the members became a Christian? I guess the spell must have been broken, lol.

 

[Muffled]

Reincarnation/Rebirth is inexplicably linked to astrology(both past and future)...IMHO,Astrology is banned in some abrahamic religions ,in order to prevent fatalism and cheating that goes on in the name of divination.

BTW..What is the christian take on sorcery and astrology.?

A church I attended took exception to the fact that I read Tarot cards among other things.