Saudi Arabia Sentences Man to Execution for SORCERY

Sat, 01/02/2010 - 11:00am | posted by Michael Orion Powell

At the Cato Institute, David Boaz relays the Saudi sentencing to death of a man for the “crime” of astrology:

A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a Lebanese television host to death for the crime of “sorcery.” Apparently Ali Hussein Sibat was recognized by Saudi religious police as he made a pilgrimage to Mecca. On his show, he gave advice to callers and made predictions about their future. He could be executed any day now.

It’s disputable how significant the portion of the Islamic faith is that follows the line of thinking that led to Ali Hussein Sibat’s sentencing, but it is very clear, from countless constant and widespread terror attacks to similar backward sentencing occurring throughout the Islamic world (and in supposedly “democratic” regimes such as Afghanistan), that it is not a small phenomenon.