“His Grace Shaikh Salih al-Lhaidan, member of the Commission of Senior Ulema (clergy) and former chief of the High Judiciary Council today demanded that the writer Hamza Kashghari should be put to death as an apostate, even if he repents. He also demanded that Arab states of OPEC should stop all petroleum exports to Russia and China after their veto at the United Nations Security Council……”
“Saudi King Abdullah has ordered the writer Hamza Kashghri be arrested for insulting Islam in his writings and tweets….….”
This Kashghri, I haven’t read anything by or for him, has now got a double whammy. The shaikhs fatwad that he be killed, the king (no less) has now ordered his arrest. It is usually Prince Nayef’s empire that arrests people and “punishes” them, but this time his royal majesty decided to get the credit. Unlike the shaikh, the king did not tie all this to Russia and China and their UN vote on Syrian intervention. A royal decree, no less, for an arrest: only in Saudi Arabia, what we on the Gulf used to call watermelon country (with watermelon laws).
Now
I’ve got to read something about this guy, just to see wtf he said or wrote. They say that he soon retracted what he wrote and expressed his apology, but nothing doing. In Saudi Arabia, looking at the photo of a prince with your tongue out or your middle finger extended can get you an open-ended invitation to a cell in a cellar (not a chateau type).
Cheers
mhg
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