Islamic court sentences psychic to death
I love exploring cities but during a business trip to Saudi Arabia, ten years ago, I had no hesitation in declining the opportunity to visit Deera Square and its gold market in the capital, Riyadh.
My guide, an Englishman living and working in the city, explained that it was also known as Justice Square but he and others knew it as “Chop Chop Square” because it was where offenders were publicly beheaded or had their hands cut off.
What’s more, if a Westerner happens to be in the square at the time of an execution, he or she is usually pushed to the front by the police to get a good look of Saudi justice in action.
I opted to stay in the car and be driven to somewhere less stomach-churning. It never crossed my mind that, a decade later, I would be writing about that experience because a person currently under sentence of death is due to be executed in Saudi … for being psychic!
Ali Sibat is a self-described psychic who gives advice to people and makes predictions on Lebanon’s satellite TV channel Sheherezade.
Apparently, he’s very popular. He’s also clearly not very good at what he does, but that’s beside the point.
Last year, he visited Medina – the second holiest city in Islam after Mecca and also the burial place of Muhammad, Islam’s founder. He did so, it seems, as a devoted Muslim on a pilgrimage for the Hajj.
But his psychic powers failed to tell him what was about to happen. Saudi’s special religious police arrested him in his hotel room on 7 May, 2008. They knew who he was and of his TV shows. His lawyer says Sibat was told that if he confessed to “witchcraft” he would be allowed to return home. He did so, and instead was charged with that crime and thrown into prison.
On 9 November, after 18 months in custody, a lower court in Medina sentenced him to death. It is now up to the cassation court in Mecca to confirm or overturn that verdict.
It has taken a few weeks for this story to reach the West but leading news organisations are beginning to take up the case. Hopefully, media pressure will result in the sentence being revoked and also lead to his early release. But I’m not optimistic about the outcome.
To put this case into perspective, I should emphasise:
• Ali Sibat is not accused of any crime carried out in Saudi Arabia
• The crime he is accused of – witchcraft – is a general but meaningless term: he has not been charged with anything specific
• Saudi Arabia has no written penal code outside of sharia law, which gives its judges the power to determine what behaviour is unlawful
• He comes from a country where Muslims are in the majority (60 per cent) yet which has no problem with celebrity psychics and astrologers
• Despite pressure from other countries, Saudi Arabia continues with its policy of capital punishment. In 2008, it executed 102 individuals.
Let us hope the mounting campaign from activists like the Human Rights Watch as well as newspapers such as Britain’s Guardian will save Ali Sibat.
Meanwhile, I can’t help but reflect on the absurdity of a situation that arises from a religion – Islam – which is said to be based on revelations from angels dictated to Muhammad over a 20-year-period.
In some countries, that would also be thought of as witchcraft. During his lifetime, even the prophet of Islam and his followers were persecuted by the authorities for their beliefs.
One last thought to anyone reading this who is thinking of visiting Saudi Arabia: it seems there’s no way, in advance, of knowing whether your beliefs or behaviour in your own country will be seen as offensive to its religious police.
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I do not agree that Ali Sibat has been sentenced to death for being psychic; he has been sentenced to death for his claim that he is psychic. It seems to me that his psychic abilities are about as good as those of Anita Ikona, but in this instance the outcome could be tragic – for him.
One does not need psychic powers to know that Saudi Arabia is a fundamentalist Islamic state where even the possession of a Christian bible is a criminal offence. You won’t find any tolerance there for anything that does not comply with strict religious laws that can be interpreted and implemented at a whim to suit the political situation at any given time.
Whichever way you look at it, we have a self-proclaimed person of supernatural powers who has shown a distinct lack of same; and a governmental power that claims to represent a supernatural deity that has to have its will done by humans but is never able to do its own dirty work.
There is nothing supernatural or psychic going on here. A deluded “psychic” has been sentenced to death by deluded representatives of a non-existent deity. If a psychic cannot predict his own fate, he is not psychic; if a deity itself cannot deal with it, then the deity cannot be real.
The only thing that might save Ali Sibat is an international outcry that the Saudis can turn to their own political advantage. I hope his life can be saved from this lunacy, but if so, it will not be through any supernatural or psychic intervention.
“I do not agree that Ali Sibat has been sentenced to death for being psychic; he has been sentenced to death for his claim that he is psychic. It seems to me that his psychic abilities are about as good as those of Anita Ikona, but in this instance the outcome could be tragic – for him.”
Sorry but i don’t see where Roy is saying that he thinks Ali is a real psychic..
Indeed he says:
“Apparently, he’s very popular. He’s also clearly not very good at what he does, but that’s beside the point.”
Position of spirit guide is not a bad one, those against should see how many this person helped before condemning him to death… for helping people.
Islam is not the only one. As an unorthodox and unconventional Christian, I can assure you that there are still fundamental Christians who would burn me at the stake and make a party out of it. Much like the point made about Mohammad, if Jesus came back today and did now what He did then, Jesus himself would not be acceptable to some of today’s Christians. One more reason to be thankful that though we are a nation comprised predominantly of Christians, we are not a Christian nation. Fair and just law cannot be based on religious doctrine.
Wow, I cant believe they arrested someone on a pilgrimage. Not to mention yeah “witchcraft” has no business in any law. I cant believe people would live like its 1,000 years ago.
Leave it to Americans to assume the rest of the world’s problems are our own – you want to be a hero? Start taking action to save America…
Focus people…Plenty of problems HERE you can try to solve – then your idle logic can be useful?
We’re turning into a country of bleeding hearts, but unwilling to stand up to our own government for its wrongs – such a wise nation we are…everyone else should listen to us?
Useless is the person who complains his neighbour’s house is in disrepair, when his own house is imploding behind him – YEAH – LETS FOCUS ON THE SAUDIS!
Arrogance and ignorance – a large part of anti-American sentiment. Let’s keep fanning the flames?
Shows you how Islam is a barbaric religion that has not mature at all.
Once again we see why the Saudis and the Arab world in general should be regarded as the throwbacks to the 13th century that they are. Instead the liberals in my country seem to think we should treat them with kid gloves, fall over ourselves apologising for our American ignorance, and bending over backwards to erase all traces of Christianity from the public arena while making certain every Moslem has adequate time and space in every airport to wash their dirty feet and pray.
I wonder daily if the Creator can’t help but to hang His/Her head in disbelief and sigh in sad resignation at what we do to each other in the name of religion.
We don’t really care what they do as long as the oil keeps flowing. China is just as bad. But that’s ok too, so long as we can still trade our jobs for “Lower Prices Everyday”.
I don’t see why it matters if he thinks he is psychic, claims to be psychic or WHAT. Saudi Arabia is a backwards country that is nothing but brutal crap.
The US needs to be putting travel restrictions on that cesspool.
Idiots. what a waste of space. Islam is such a joke