Tag Archives: Saudi Arabia

Justin Welby bows to Saudi Crown Prince

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In this photo Welby may be pointing out to Mohammed bin Salman that his shoelace is undone; or warning him not to slip on a banana peel; or inviting the prince to inspect his head for lice.

Or he might have been bowing.

Welby is meeting with the Crown Prince to discuss Saudi Arabia’s “strong commitment to interfaith dialogue”, an idea so preposterous not even an ex oil executive whose scruples must have been numbed by the necessity of buying oil from an odious oligarchy should take it seriously. The country renowned for beating critics of its leaders practically to death, that practices the most barbaric excesses of sharia law, that mutilates women because it is “noble”, has no Christian churches. None. Saudi Arabia is an Islamic theocracy, a nasty, brutish, despotism which does not tolerate the public practice of other religions. There is no “interfaith” because there are no other state tolerated faiths.

In other news, next week Justin Welby will be meeting with Satan to foster reconciliation, begin interfaith dialogue, and persuade him to turn down the temperature in hell.

From here:

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman held a private meeting Thursday with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, where he made a “strong commitment” to interfaith dialogue, the archbishop’s office said.

During the hour-long visit at Lambeth Palace, the pair discussed the crown prince’s reform plans and Welby — the head of the Anglican church — expressed his concerns about the treatment of Christians in Saudi Arabia.

“The Crown Prince made a strong commitment to promote the flourishing of those of different faith traditions, and to interfaith dialogue within the Kingdom and beyond,” the archbishop’s office said in a statement.

“The archbishop shared his concern about limits placed on Christian worship in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and highlighted the importance for leaders of all faiths to support freedom of religion or belief, drawing on the experience of the UK.”

Something else that has nothing to do with Islam

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From here:

RaifEnsaf Haidar stood beside the kitchen table, urging her three children to eat. Newspapers featuring her husband’s face on the front were spread in the spaces between three pizza boxes, and a banner covering most of the wall showed him as well, with several dozen signatures of those who attended a #FreeRaif vigil in Montreal.

“All he did was blog,” his wife said through an interpreter in an interview with The Globe and Mail on Wednesday. “Until the last moment, I couldn’t believe it. I kept telling him it wasn’t going to happen. It’s impossible, it doesn’t seem real.”

In Saudi Arabia, her husband Raif Badawi, 32, was preparing for the second 50 of his 1,000 lashes on Friday – but, as it turned out, that punishment was postponed, after a doctor concluded he had not sufficiently recovered from the first floggings administered Jan. 9. And according to Ms. Haidar, the Saudi government referred the case to the country’s supreme court, suggesting international pressure might be having an effect.

But Ms. Haidar isn’t holding her breath: “I won’t stop [fighting] until Raif is free.”

As it stands, Mr. Badawi is to receive 50 lashes every Friday for 19 more weeks after prayers in front of a mosque in Jeddah, a city on the coast of the Red Sea. He was convicted of insulting Islam and religious figures on his blog, the Saudi Liberal Network, and sentenced to 10 years in prison and a 10-year order not to leave the kingdom and not to practise journalism after that. He faces a fine of about $319,000.

Don’t be deceived by the phrase “[h]e was convicted of insulting Islam” or by the fact that the flogging takes place “in front of a mosque in Jeddah” or the “prayers” to Allah before the flogging. None of this has anything to do with Islam: Islam is a religion of peace, love and tolerance.

Saudi Arabia v.s. Ethical Oil

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The Saudi government has hired a law firm to prevent the airing of an advertisement by ethicaloil.org. The advertisement makes the redundantly obvious point that it is better to buy oil from Alberta than an Islamist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic tyranny that would have remained a sand-ridden wasteland populated by antediluvian barbarians had it not been for a Paleozoic accident.

From here:

OTTAWA – Efforts to silence an advertising campaign about Saudi Arabian oil before it re-airs in Canada have succeeded in keeping the ads off of CTV News Channel.

QMI Agency has acquired an e-mail that indicates the broadcaster cancelled a booking for an Ethicaloil.org ad campaign that presents Saudi Arabian oil as an ‘unethical’ energy choice.

“Our position should be that we are in receipt of notice of a legal dispute with respect to this spot and that, accordingly, we will not broadcast the spot until the legal dispute is resolved,” reads the e-mail quoting CTV’s legal department.

The ads have raised the ire of the Saudi government because they equate buying Saudi oil with helping fund a kingdom that oppresses women while presenting Alberta’s oilsands as a more humane alternative.

Sun News Network is still running the ads.

Saudi Arabia’s government has hired a high-powered law firm to get the ads banned. Individual broadcasters have also received warnings not to run the ads.

The Saudis clearly find the advertisement convincing or they would not be exerting themselves to suppress it.

Missed opportunity for a homosexual Saudi prince

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A homosexual Saudi prince beat his lover to death and can’t return to his own country because – although murder of a servant isn’t a real problem –  Saudi Arabia, being founded on the religion of peace, would put him to death for being gay.

If only he had married his catamite instead of murdering him, he could have applied to the priesthood of the Anglican Church of Canada and, as a homosexual Muslim, been guaranteed a bishopric within a few years. He could still apply after he is released; he’d have to find another catamite, of course.

From here:

He must serve a minimum term of 20 years in jail for murdering Bandar Abdulaziz in a ”brutal” assault at their five-star hotel.

If he ever returns to his home country, Saud faces the possibility of execution because being gay is a capital offence there.

And now a break from Koran burning: Snafi comes to Saudi Arabia

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An impotence remedy is causing a fuss in Saudi Arabia. A TV ad proclaims, ‘Snafi – it does the job: up to 36 hours of stiffness.’

Apparently, ‘Broadcaster Channel One was reported to be inundated with complaints about the ad.’ Perhaps Muslim men are offended that their masculinity is in doubt; or maybe the ‘stiffness’ didn’t last the full 36 hours?

The religion of peace wants to cut a man’s spine

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From here:

A court in Saudi Arabia is seeking medical advice on whether it is possible to cut the spinal cord of a man as a punishment after he was indicted of causing paralysis to another man during a fight, a local daily reported on Thursday.

The court in the northwestern province of Tabuk has sent letters to hospitals in the kingdom asking them whether the punishment to cripple the defendant by severing his spine is medically possible, the Arabic language daily Okaz said.

……

“King Khaled Hospital is of the opinion that it is possible to cut the spinal cord and cause paralysis medically through specialist centres,” he said.

According to the paper, the verdict is pending responses from hospitals to the court’s letters.

That an act so grotesque be sought by a judicial system is bad enough, but when it is law derived from a religion, it can only mean one thing: the religion is as grotesque as the law.