Another Westerner has a near-lethal brush with sharia law and its draconian system. Yet while this writer descries Saudi Arabia for being inhumane, his ignorance of what fuels the Saudis' logic is revealed by the fact that never once does he mention sharia (or even "Islamic law") by name, nor does the word "Islam" appear. Rather, he is outraged that the Saudis have such a brutal, far from modern or "progressive," justice system. Little does he know that what he experienced has a long, theological lineage that far transcends the temporal Arab kingdom.
"How I survived chop chop square," by William Sampson for the Guardian, October 14 (thanks to Interesting Conundrum):
In theory I should now be dead. Not from disease or an accident but because of the simple fact that my head was set to be severed from my body with a sharp sword in a public square in Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian capital.Right, one of the great "crimes" that one Filipino migrant worker was tortured for years was that he was in possession of Bibles. Gaudencio Lorenzo "suffered several broken bones and multiple wounds" and had been forced to "convert" to Islam before his release.In 2001, I was condemned to die in this brutal archaic fashion after being caught up in what became known as the "Saudi Brits" affair. Along with eight others, I was rounded up by the panicked Saudi authorities after a series of attacks on foreigners in the kingdom suddenly started to make this expat country of choice seem distinctly unsafe.
Desperate to pin a nascent anti-government insurgency on squabbling "bootlegger" foreigners (anything rather than concede that ultra-safe Saudi Arabia had an internal terrorism problem), we were to be the sacrificial lambs. Remember those bizarre, wooden "confessions", haltingly delivered by scared looking men on national Saudi television? One of those came from me. If I looked petrified it may have been because I'd been dragged to prison, threatened, sleep-deprived and beaten so severely that I almost died from heart attacks.
In a numbed state of shock, I would have confessed to anything. As it was, I said I'd committed a series of laughably implausible "turf war" crimes that never even existed. The farce continued. I was subjected to two perfunctory, completely scripted trials at which I was told to plead guilty and beg for mercy. I was sentenced to death, tried again twice without even being in the courtroom at all, and again sentenced to death by beheading.
This, remember, is what happened just a handful of years ago in a justice system of an influential Middle Eastern country that enjoys excellent diplomatic relations with most of the world's powerful countries, including Britain. It was only this time last year, for example, that we were rolling out the red carpet for King Abdullah's state visit.
So, how did I come to be alive to write this for the Guardian today? Simple. Belonging to a wealthy "client" nation like the United Kingdom means that while you can be tortured and falsely imprisoned in Saudi Arabia, in practice you are not going to suffer a brutal demise in "chop chop" square in this execution-addicted country.
At the time of my ordeal there was much talk of "diplomatic efforts" to secure our release. This was mostly UK government spin – they had to put it about that they were trying hard to get us out. Yes, they will have exerted pressure on the Riyadh authorities but I later learnt that I and my fellow detainees had been released as part of a "prisoner exchange" involving five Saudis being held by the US at Guantánamo Bay.
Finally released in August 2003, after 964 days of solitary confinement, torture and dehumanising terror, I harbour no illusions about what saved me: my passport. There was no apology, no official pardon, just a perfunctory granting of "clemency" and immediate expulsion from the country. An accident of birth had preserved me and eventually my release became a political expediency.
Ironically, even the manner of my release further confirmed the politically corrupt nature of the Saudi system of justice. Foreign workers like me, subject to bogus trials and languishing in miserable jails, can only hope that the Saudi lottery of false mercy will save them. Meanwhile, of course, Saudi's poor migrant workers from Somalia, Bangladesh, the Philippines or Pakistan are virtually doomed if they face a capital charge (not all for lethal crimes, incidentally).
Anyone who might somehow think that Saudi justice is harsh but fair should read a new Amnesty International report (pdf) which shows that the legal system is heavily rigged, with well-connected Saudi nationals up to eight times more likely to negotiate "blood money" pay-offs to victims' families that lead to commutation.Certainly one shouldn't forget that ordinary Saudis without the right connections are also going to their deaths in this lethal lottery of a justice system. The latest figures show that this blood-soaked country is on average executing at least two people every single week.
In my experience what passes for a judicial system in Saudi Arabia has less to do with investigating crime and punishing criminals, and far more to do with maintaining control and compliance among both its own citizens and its community of ex-patriot workers.
Why should we care? Well, apart from the fact that thousands of British people go to work in this country every year and that Britain continues to maintain extremely cordial relations with the Saudi royals, this wretched system is simply an affront, not only to justice but to our common humanity.
If ever there was an advertisement for the abolition of the death penalty and for all that is wrong with its application, Saudi (in)justice provides it.
I can only ask: when are western governments going to stop pandering to the Saudi princes? Or could it be that they prefer to go on burying their heads in the sand?
I'm glad that William Sampson is speaking out about his horrifying ordeal, even if he does not understand its roots in Islamic law.
I wonder, though, if he realizes that this same hideous system has a toehold in his own nation? This despite Britain having--along with other culturally Anglo nations such as the US, Canada and Australia--the finest legal system in human history.
Does he know that Britain already has Shari'ah courts--oh, as yet, they are just presiding over inequitous inheritance cases (insuring that female heirs receive just half of their brothers' inheritance) and over domestic violence cases (where they ensure that women drop criminal charges, while their violent husbands receive advice from Imams, and perhaps a course in "anger management").
But they want more. Dr. Hasan, an Imam presiding over British Shari'ah courts, has said that he wants to "offer" full Shari'ah to Britain, including amputation for thieves and stoning for Adulterers.
Why? So that the UK can have the same level of peace and justice that Saudi Arabia has. Yes, that's his model--the horror that Mr. Sampson barely escaped.
Come the islamic revolution, perhaps some members of the corrupt House of Saud will take their turn in Chop-Chop Square. More likely, there will be a hurried departure of a flock of private jets taking the princelings to plush exiles in places convenient to their secret bank accounts.(Jihadists, make sure to crater the runways asap) Their place at the block on that dies irae will be taken by court flunkeys too slow on the uptake to have hot-footed it out of Dodge.
Query:
Do the Saudis behead in the same manner as Jihadis? The latter lay the victim on his side, and administer a throat slitting on steroids. It looks like an animal being slaughtered.
I know the Saudis use a sword, but the term chop-chop implies that they neither use the Jihadi method, nor the fine technique practiced on Anne Boleyn. (She knelt upright, and the swordsman delivered his cut with a single blow)
Does chop-chop mean that the sword is used more like an axe on a block of wood? That would be messy, (a la Maria Stuarta) and not so healthy for the sword.
Why was this man in Saudi Arabia to begin with? Greed? Huge salary tax-free? Aiding the very government which wishes to kill him and his entire family if Islam is not accepted?
I have a relative or two who were "stationed" in S. Arabia. The tales they could tell...
When you hire a Saudi "Manager", you actually have to hire another person to do the work. The Saudi is above work, and his desk and nameplate are only for status. Real work is beneath them.
Saudi women will chase your wife around the grocery store with the intention of gang violence if one whisp of hair mistakenly falls out of the mandatory headscarf.
the Saudis are all powerful- we know that and we also know the reason why.
the threat of having those taps turned off or even down hangs like the sword of damaclese over our heads.
Mr Sampson is indeed lucky to be alve and it may well be that someone in the FO pleaded for his life because such a beheading might not be "good for business" rather than on humanitarian grounds.
As for greed and ignorance, one can understand the greed because far greater acts of greediness have been commited by our own western bankers who do not have to migrate to a sharia law heel hole tp make a buck.
But the ignorance, well that is inexcusable and may be the result of our own white washing propaganda of wahabbi islam.
Divide et impera!
The CIA should divide the Saudi princes and make small states of them:
- the open ones get the east and the oil;
- the pro-sharia ones get the traditional Hijaz and no oil and no money.
Why not?
You know, I get sick of these whining idiots, who go to work in these nutty regimes for the money, and are then surprised that what they've turned their face away from, turns and bites them.
What no trial by jury, endemic corruption, unspeakable cruelty, shit it must not be Britain then.
Sorry no sympathy, zero.
Twat
He was a bargaining chip, from the start.
The moment that the House of Saud learned that five of their pet jihadists had been caught by westerners and were in prison at Guantanamo, one could have predicted that Westerners in Saudi Arabia would be a. seized and accused of all manner of crimes b. used as a lever to get the jihadists out of jail.
Look at this:
"I later learnt that I and my fellow detainees had been released as part of a "prisoner exchange" involving five Saudis being held by the US at Guantánamo Bay."
That is a sufficient explanation for why he was grabbed in the first place.
As for being subjected to "solitary confinement, torture and dehumanising terror..." - this is the Saudis exacting a typical Muslim revenge upon kafir, for the dreadful 'humiliation' represented by 'five Saudis being held by the US'.
Qur'an 2:194:
'The forbidden month for the forbidden month, and forbidden things in retaliation.
And one who attacketh you, attack him in like manner as he attacked you.'
(Of course, strictly speaking, the capture of those five Saudi jihadists was the US response to 9/11 - but to thoroughly Muslim minds, poisoned by the narcissism and supremacism that the Qur'an inculcates, kafir have NO right to respond, NO right even to defend themselves against Muslim aggression, no right even to complain).
Beyond that - beyond the disgusting, petty motive of taking exorbitant revenge and exacting 'collective punishment' for a perceived 'insult' (US seizes Saudi jihadists on the field of battle; so House of Saud falsely accuses, arrests, humiliates and torments British civilians - one kafir as as good as another, for purposes of revenge) - there is the sadistic desire to humiliate and hurt *any* and *every* kafir, that runs right through so many of the texts of Islam.
Look at the Indian Sufi Muslim Sirhindi. In the 17th century, this is what he wrote:
"...Allah has commanded his Prophet to wage war (jihad) against the infidels, and be harsh with them.
"The glory of Islam consists in the humiliation and degradation of infidels and infidelity. He who honours the infidels, insults Islam."
Mr Sampson, British non-Muslim, has now experienced first-hand precisely the 'humiliation and degradation' that Sirhindi prescribed as the proper treatment for kafir.
I don't have Ayaan Hirsi Ali's 'Infidel' handy at the moment, to quote from.
But I remember her saying, in that book, that the main impression she took away, after living for some time in Saudi Arabia as a child, was this: CRUELTY. The whole place was drenched with it. Every night in the Saudi neighbourhood she lived in, she could hear the screams of women being violently beaten by their husbands (women, of course, being the Designated Prey, if there are no kafir to torment and degrade).
The vilely disgusting House of Saud - and the whole society over which they 'rule' - makes the Marquis de Sade look like a wimp.
They don't murder-sacrifice as many people as the Aztecs did...just two a week, every week of the year, every year for god alone only knows how long (and those are only the ceremonial, public sacrifices) ...but as far as I am concerned, Chop Chop Square is performing exactly the same function as the Aztecs' sacrificial pyramids.
You know, some time ago one of our latest Mohammedan Dementors, 'Abdullah Mikhail', when asked whether he would like to go live in Saudi Arabia, declared fervently that he would do so, 'in a heartbeat!'
Yeah. Riiight. Where Muslims can lord it over kafir and *hurt* them and *humiliate* them and even kill them, for fun. A whole society set up to facilitate and sacralise the expression of the darkest desires of sadists, psychopaths and sociopaths - so long as they're Muslims.
I would hazard a guess that the author understands what is behind the harsh treatment he recieved. There is an old saying, the man mauled by the bear afterwards is afraid of a stump.
When you have 100% Islam, this is what you get.
I suspect that the Guardian has a policy of never criticising Islam or of making any connection between the Jihad and Islamic teaching. I think this policy is pretty much adopted across the MSM.
Sorry Mr Sampson but I have absolutely no sympathy for anyone selling their soul to the devil to make a fast rotten buck.
Skevin: Here are the details from the butcher himself.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2966790.stm
Leading on from my comment above, if the UK government has the power to prevent British passport holders from travelling abroad - purely on the pretext that they might cause trouble at a football match, then why doesn't the government prevent suspected jihadist sympathisers from travelling to Pakistan?
Double standards? You bet. But we can't restrict the free movement of "British" Muslims, can we? - even if they're off to a military training camp to learn how to blow us up.
Ooops. I posted that on the wrong thread.
For those of you that don't agree with people that go or have gone to Saudi Arabia for the money: Some of those jobs, like mine from 1990 through 2006, as an aircraft mechanic with a private company which had a contract with the military, had a mandatory rotation to Saudi just to stay employed. If you decided not to go, then you were fired. It was a good job otherwise at home, so most would just grit their teeth and go for 60 day, 90 day , or a full year tour to save on taxes and not have to worry about it for another 2 or 3 years. Other than during the actual Gulf War, the money was not great and we were just there to keep our jobs at home.
I would also like to say, after visiting Saudi Arabia four times between 1991 and 1998, that I haven't seen anything written about Saudi or Islam on this website that does not completely mesh with what I encountered in person. With each progressive visit, I felt more tension from the Saudis, and I was not suprised at all to hear that most of the 9/11 attackers were Saudi.
In '98 I had a first hand kaffir experience in which the military sent me to the Saudi hospital for an emergency apendectomy because they didn't have the proper facilities (just a double-wide trailer). If I knew then what I know now, I would have demanded my chances be taken in the trailer. Long story short, as the American surgeon told me afterwards, "They saved your life but then they tried to kill you". I'll be glad to go into more detail if anyone's interested.
Anyway, you guys at Jihad/Dhimmi Watch are always hitting the nail right on the head with this site, keep up the good work.
Interesting, but chilling-to-the-bone post, whatdoitdoes?
What a horrible position to be put in to keep one's job. I know that, as a female, I would never set foot in an Islamic country.