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1/21/15, "How Saudi Arabia’s harsh legal punishments compare to the Islamic State’s," Washington Post, Adam Taylor
"Following the lashing of blogger Raif Badawi and leaked footage that showed the public execution
of a woman accused of beating her daughter, Saudi Arabia's harsh
interpretation of sharia law and its use of capital punishment have come
under international scrutiny.
For many, the Saudi justice system
sounds not unlike that of the Islamic State, the extremist Islamist
group which has struck fear in much of the Middle East.
This
week, Middle East Eye, a Web site that focuses on news from the region
and is frequently critical of Saudi Arabia, contrasted a set of legal
punishments recently announced by the Islamic State with the corresponding punishments in Saudi Arabia.
While Saudi Arabia isn't particularly forthcoming about its use of
capital punishment (and Middle East Eye doesn't cite its source) and
accurate information from within the Islamic State's self-proclaimed
caliphate is hard to ascertain, information from news sources and human
rights organizations suggest the chart is at least broadly accurate.
One
key difference between the Islamic State and Saudi Arabia, of course,
is that the latter is a key U.S. ally in the region – and a member of
the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State. Some experts argue
that the fundamentalist brand of Islam practiced by both has theological
links, however, and Riyadh's recent crackdown has been interpreted as an act of appeasement for Saudi hard-liners.
Saudi Arabia's own concern about the Islamic State is likely genuine (plans to build an enormous wall
along its border with Iraq are a good sign of that), but for many
Americans, the extremist group's rise is also bringing with it a renewed
skepticism about American allies in the region." via Free Rep.
.
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