Any Magic Solution for Saudi Justice?

You don't know whether to laugh or cry as you read the Arab News report about Saudi Finance Minister Ibrahim al-Assaf's testimony in the Shura Council yesterday. Peppered with complaints about rising inflation in the Kingdom, al-Assaf explained, with a straight face, that "there is no magic solution."

A good thing, too, because if al-Assaf used some magic potion to bring down the price of goods, he might find himself in an Islamic court being charged with sorcery. And if he was convicted, he could have his head chopped off by a sword in a public square, the punishment for witchcraft.

Al-Assaf, a fine public servant, by the way, better be more careful with his choice of metaphors nowadays. There is an illiterate woman named Fawza Falih on death row in Saudi Arabia right now, facing execution for witchcraft. Among the charges is that she used magic to make a man go suddenly impotent.

Human Rights Watch stirred up interest in Falih's case by writing a letter last week asking King Adullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud for a stay of execution. HRW points out that last November, an Egyptian pharmacist working in Saudi Arabia was executed for having tried to separate a married couple through sorcery. Accusations of witchcraft in Saudi Arabia are no joke.

One hopes that King Abdullah will deal sensibly with Falih's case. To his credit, he has fairly consistently sought a way around these ludicrous human rights violations when they occur. Part of his problem is that the Islamic courts responsible for these miscarriages of justice are controlled by hard-line Islamists who are a powerful constituency in Saudi Arabia. Some go so far as to describe the Saudi regime as a coalition between the secular-oriented al-Saud royal clan and the al-Sheikh tribe of Wahhabi diehards. That's not to absolve the al-Saud of any blame; as the guardians of the government, the royal family needs to take more aggressive steps to align Saudi Arabia's human rights record with international norms. Yet, the Al-Saud, or most of its influential leaders, realize very well that Saudi Arabia doesn't have a very good future if it makes a habit of executing alleged witches, or, say, imprisoning rape victims who commit the "crime" of being in the company of a man.

From HRW's account, Falih's case seems a pretty easy one for the King to dispense with. HRW chronicles numerous violations of Falih's rights even in terms of Saudi Arabia's own legal rules. Among them were blocking her access to a lawyer, and ignoring the fact that she had retracted a confession. That is quite apart from the absurdity of a Kingdom accusing one of its subjects of using magic to cause such a malady as male impotence.

Needless to say, there are no women judges in Saudi Arabia. Hey, now that's a crime! As for the impotent gentleman; well, wouldn't you love to hear his wife's version of the story?

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo