Saudi Arabia’s Ongoing War on Fun
September 19th, 2008 by Jason
The Economist reports on a dust-up in the Wahhabist kingdom. On live radio, the country’s chief justice said it would be lawful to kill the owners of satellite television stations who broadcast “lewd” programming during Ramadan. This incitement to extra-judicial murder was roundly condemned by both Saudi liberals and rival clerics. In response, the authorities took the chief justice’s radio show off the air.
Before we celebrate this poking-through of the rule of law, it should be noted that the “owners of most of the channels that Saudis watch are, in fact, fellow Saudis, some of them with close ties to the ruling family.”
(Bonus article trivia: The Grand Mufti recently declared the celebration of birthdays “sinfully unIslamic”)
Posted in Human Rights, Judiciary, Saudi Arabia |
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