TV Fortune Teller Faces Beheading in Saudi Arabia

[SinoIndusFriendship]

TV Fortune Teller Faces Beheading in Saudi Arabia


Lauren Frayer Contributor
AOL News
(April 1) -- A popular Lebanese TV personality who hosted a show where he predicted the future and gave callers advice is awaiting execution in Saudi Arabia for witchcraft, his lawyer said this week.

Ali Hussain Sabat is the former host of a popular call-in show that aired on the Beirut-based satellite TV channel Sheherazade. On the show, he answered callers' questions about the future and dispatched general advice on life questions.

Under Saudi Arabia's strict interpretation of Islam, that's considered sorcery -- a crime punishable by death. The Saudi religious police burst into Sabat's hotel room in the city of Medina in 2008 and arrested him while on a Muslim pilgrimage to the kingdom. A Saudi court convicted Sabat last year and sentenced him to death.

Lebanese TV host Ali Sibat in an undated photo
© Private
Lebanese TV host Ali Sibat, here in an undated photo, was arrested in Saudi Arabia while on a religious pilgrimage in 2008. He was convicted of witchcraft.
In Saudi Arabia, most executions are carried out by beheading the victim with a sword, often in a public square. They're most commonly carried out on Thursdays, the last day of the work week there.

Sabat's lawyer, May el-Khansa, told several news agencies Wednesday that she believes her client will be executed within 48 hours. She later told

CNN<.ul> she had been assured that he would not be put to death on Friday, but there was no indication the death sentence would be commuted.

She is appealing to Lebanese authorities, including the country's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, to intervene.

"It is very important that we save the life of this one person," el-Khansa told Agence France-Presse. "He is not a criminal." She added that Sabat's family is in shock and that his elderly mother is seriously ill, with doctors saying the stress of her son's ordeal has brought her to the brink of death herself.

The 46-year-old Sabat is the father of five children.

Several high-profile human rights groups have joined Sabat's family and lawyer in demanding his release. "Ali Hussain Sabat appears to have been convicted solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression," Malcolm Smart, head of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa program, said in a press release.

"It is high time the Saudi Arabian government joined the international trend towards a worldwide moratorium on executions," Smart said, urging Lebanese authorities and Saudi King Abdullah to stop the execution.

The New York-based group Human Rights Watch has also called on the Saudi king to halt such executions as well as the kingdom's "increasing use of charges of 'witchcraft,' which remains vaguely defined and arbitrarily used."

"Saudi courts are sanctioning a literal witch hunt by the religious police," the group's Middle East director, Sarah Leah Whitson, said in a statement. "The crime of 'witchcraft' is being used against all sorts of behavior, with the cruel threat of state-sanctioned executions."

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery, drug trafficking and sorcery are among the crimes punishable by death in Saudi Arabia, which strictly applies a version of sharia, or Islamic law.

In November 2007, an Egyptian man working as a pharmacist in Saudi Arabia was beheaded after he was found guilty of sorcery. Riyadh announced in 2009 that it would launch a campaign to combat sorcery in the kingdom.

 

[zagahaga]

he wa doing kala jadu ........ to the west no big thing but saudia arabia BIG THING

 

[SinoIndusFriendship]

he wa doing kala jadu ........ to the west no big thing but saudia arabia BIG THING

But he's not even a Saudi national, he's LEBANESE! This is stepping on international law and sovereignty. Not to mention is he a POPULAR TV STAR, which means he has a LOT OF PUBLIC SUPPORT in Lebanon (and assuming elsewhere as well).

These Saudi "royalty" need to be taught a lesson.

 

[FreekiN]

WHAT THE HECK IS THE POINT OF A BEHEADING? WHAT ARE THEY GONNA DO WITH HIS HEAD?

If your gonna kill someone ATLEAST make it clean and quick.

BACKWARD FREAKS OF NATURE.

 

[SinoIndusFriendship]

WHAT THE HECK IS THE POINT OF A BEHEADING? WHAT ARE THEY GONNA DO WITH HIS HEAD?

If your gonna kill someone ATLEAST make it clean and quick.

BACKWARD FREAKS OF NATURE.

It's for the FEAR FACTOR.

Back to topic. I don't see what's wrong. If his native country where he does his fortune telling show has no problem, who are the Saudis to interfere in the domestic affairs of LEBANON?

It is like some American TV Evangelist goes to a foreign country, is detain on charges of "fraud" and "witchcraft" and beheaded. WTF???

 

[thebrownguy]

When i hear about incidents like these,it makes me wonder that some people are still living 1300 years behind time. Disgusting!!

 

[FreekiN]

When i hear about incidents like these,it makes me wonder that some people are still living 1300 years behind time. Disgusting!!

it's because they want to. You barely ever hear a saudi complaining.

 

[gambit]

But he's not even a Saudi national, he's LEBANESE! This is stepping on international law and sovereignty.

Actually...If the crime is considered particularly heinous, citizenship can be ignored and the guilty can be served the most severe sentence.

If his native country where he does his fortune telling show has no problem, who are the Saudis to interfere in the domestic affairs of LEBANON

The Saudis are not interfering in Lebanon's internal affairs. The Saudis arrested Sabat on Saudi soil...

The Saudi religious police burst into Sabat's hotel room in the city of Medina in 2008 and arrested him while on a Muslim pilgrimage to the kingdom.

The Saudis are within their sovereignty rights to arrest him.

That said...The fact that the Saudi religious police arrested him in his hotel room mean they knew who he was, why he was in Saudi Arabia and where he was staying. Did Sabat practiced 'sorcery' or 'witchcraft' on Saudi soil? Am inclined to say no. Sabat was on his religiously mandated journey. The Saudi religious police probably feared that while he would not practiced 'witchcraft' in front of a camera and audience, he might be recognized by some ordinary Saudis and asked to perform for them. Their religious fervor is transnational in scope but territorial in practice as they are restricted by Saudi and Lebanese sovereignty, laws and authority. So they waited for the man.

 

[gambit]

WHAT THE HECK IS THE POINT OF A BEHEADING? WHAT ARE THEY GONNA DO WITH HIS HEAD?

Probably bury it with the rest of him.

If your gonna kill someone ATLEAST make it clean and quick.

Beheading, if done properly, is speculated as quite painless, if somewhat visually spectacular. It depends on the executioner, be it a man or a mechanical contraption like the guillotine. The latter offer the cleanest and quickest cut. Once the spinal column is severed, no pain can be felt by the brain, which supposedly continue to live for at least a couple more minutes...

Rule of Three's : Survival and Outdoor

The Origin of the Rule of Three's
For decades, US Armed Forces survival schools have trained US soldiers with the rule of threes. It prioritizes neccessities, is easy to remember and forms a great framework for survival instruction. Three minutes without air referrs how long it takes to succomb to a lack of any of the ABC's of first aid: Airway, Breathing or Cardiovascular System. Three hours is about how long it takes to succomb to exposure to the elements. It takes about three days to die of thirst and around three weeks to die of starvation. Of course a critical lack of any of the above will likely render a person ineffective in a survival situation.

The head holds a lot of blood.

http://hopes.stanford.edu/treatmts/lifestyleandhd/pe1.html

The 400 miles of blood vessels in the human brain have a surface area of approximately 100 square feet.

Head wounds, the kind without breaking the skull, are actually more horrific in appearance than the wound actually is precisely because of the concentration of blood vessels and other fluids. In winter survival training, we are taught to keep the head covered all the time if possible to prevent the greatest heat loss. Injuries that break the skin but not the skull are treated to prevent blood from blinding the person so he can keep moving.

So after a proper and clean beheading, the victim is still conscious and possibly not too shocked to see and hear everything going on around before he die.

BACKWARD FREAKS OF NATURE.

Agreed.

 

[zagahaga]

guys look if you are a muslim please respect your beliefs and look where he was first..... before shitting mercy on us all? i mean if you look the saudie culture rejects telling of future events why? beacuse god knows only ... but if you some how happen to know? ur doing kala jadu..... sooo yea.... it sucks..... its unjust in many ways but you see if your muslinm you follow... one more thing.... the prophet(PBUH) condemmed fourtune telling and said it is haram...only special people can fourtune tell

and for the halal police if theyknow something that we dont ? let them DO IT ... they aint no cerial killers ...

 

[FreekiN]

Probably bury it with the rest of him.


Beheading, if done properly, is speculated as quite painless, if somewhat visually spectacular. It depends on the executioner, be it a man or a mechanical contraption like the guillotine. The latter offer the cleanest and quickest cut. Once the spinal column is severed, no pain can be felt by the brain, which supposedly continue to live for at least a couple more minutes...

Rule of Three's : Survival and Outdoor

The head holds a lot of blood.

Huntington's Disease Information - HOPES - Physical Exercise and HD, pe1


Head wounds, the kind without breaking the skull, are actually more horrific in appearance than the wound actually is precisely because of the concentration of blood vessels and other fluids. In winter survival training, we are taught to keep the head covered all the time if possible to prevent the greatest heat loss. Injuries that break the skin but not the skull are treated to prevent blood from blinding the person so he can keep moving.

So after a proper and clean beheading, the victim is still conscious and possibly not too shocked to see and hear everything going on around before he die.


Agreed.

There is no beating you, Mr. Gambit.

 

[SekrutYakhni]

It is the most horrendous act if the guy is beheaded.
I condemn it in very strong words.
Just because Saudis think that their version of Islam is right than sorry to say but it is their fantasy.

Freedom of speech was even their in Prophet Muhammad's Peace is Upon Him time than why not now?

Condemn the Saudi decision.


Showing off is wrong but true Sufis are the right ones regardless of you believe it or not.
True Sufism is not about music or shirk. People have the wrong idea of what true Sufism is...

This guy was showing off so it means he is not following Islam but still he should not be beheaded.

 

[ptldM3]

guys look if you are a muslim please respect your beliefs and look where he was first..... before shitting mercy on us all? i mean if you look the saudie culture rejects telling of future events why? beacuse god knows only ... but if you some how happen to know? ur doing kala jadu..... sooo yea.... it sucks..... its unjust in many ways but you see if your muslinm you follow... one more thing.... the prophet(PBUH) condemmed fourtune telling and said it is haram...only special people can fourtune tell

and for the halal police if theyknow something that we dont ? let them DO IT ... they aint no cerial killers ...

My culture and religion does too but you don't see us beheading fortune tellers. The Saudis need get out of people's personal lives, it's none of their bussines how people dress or what people do in their free time, arn't these the same people that imprison females that get rapped? Bravo way to to.

 

[zagahaga]

well come into ones country and they show you THE MUSIC

 

[SekrutYakhni]

At the end I'd like to say
Tumhara Iman tumhe mubarik, mera Iman mujhe muabrik.

God bless everyone.