Citing a shortage of swordsmen, Saudi Arabia is considering performing executions using firing squads instead of public beheadings:
A joint Saudi committee composed of representatives of the ministries of interior, justice and health is mulling the replacement of beheading with firing squads for capital sentences due to shortages in government swordsmen, Saudi daily Al-Youm reported on Sunday.
The committee argued that such a step, if adopted, would not violate Islamic law, allowing heads – or emirs – of the country’s 13 local administrative regions to begin using the new method when needed.
“This solution seems practical, especially in light of shortages in official swordsmen or their belated arrival to execution yards in some incidents; the aim is to avoid interruption of the regularly-taken security arrangements,” the committee said in a statement.
The ultra-conservative Gulf kingdom beheaded 76 people in 2012, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Human Rights Watch (HRW) put the number at 69.
In rare cases the beheading is followed by the crucifixion of the headless corpse.
Whatever the supply of swordsmen, the Saudis are likely considering this change with an eye to international pressure to end the practice.
March 10th, 2013 | 6:49 pm
I’m not sure what the purpose of this article is.
According to Wikipedia, there were 46 executions in Texas alone. What difference does it make if execution is done by beheading, firing squad, or lethal injection?
March 10th, 2013 | 6:52 pm
Correction: around 46 convicted in the USA in 2012. 46 in Texas in the past decade. My point stands the same though.
March 10th, 2013 | 11:51 pm
Eric, I also oppose capital punishment but the Saudi practice adds a level of barbarism. Beheadings and judicial amputations are done in the open with an eye to maximum public witness. In Riyadh they are conducted in Clock Tower (AKA “Chop Chop”) Square, which is in a major shopping area. Police ensure a large audience by ordering people into the square. I always managed to hide from the round-ups, but know that the crowds are silent and many are traumatized. I understand that the condemned are bled beforehand so as to keep them weak and dazed; a friend of mine said she will never forget the look of terror on one man’s face, nor the sounds of his beheading. I will not forget the panic that set in with the tell-tale signs of an imminent execution—they sent everyone hightailing it through the souk ahead of the police. When it was safe to come out, we’d pick our way around the bloody water in the streets as they cleaned up afterwards. All in a day’s shopping for some people in the world.
March 11th, 2013 | 8:31 am
Maybe France has some guillotines they could donate.
March 11th, 2013 | 8:33 am
Moral equivalence in FT? Capital punishment for first-degree, premeditated murder, and capital punishment for converting to Christianity, are not the same thing.
Also, the point of beheadings is that the head is considered the seat of reason, the soul. Beheading, therefore, denies humanity to the executed, in a way that simple execution does not.
March 11th, 2013 | 1:32 pm
The problem is not with beheading it is when it is done for crimes not worthy of execution.
As for “denying humanity”, Craig, traditionally hanging is the death of a commoner and beheading the death of a noble. Swords are a symbol of poetic anachronism. Beheading with a sword gives a sort of minimal dignity to the victim not taking it away.
Personally I think that the distaste many Westerners feel for beheading is disgust not humanitarianism. It is the same motive that makes meat eaters have a distaste for hunting and abortionists object to showing pictures.
March 11th, 2013 | 1:48 pm
Though it does bring a point; if there are really to few swordsmen to handle the demand, maybe the Saudis are raising the demand to high?
In point of fact, traditionally Arab executioners and torturers were slaves. It was simply not a job freemen would want. Of course in those days of Imperial Islam they also had slave-soldiers, and slave bureaucrats; one of the few cultures in the world to use soldiers who are legally slaves for the obvious reason that soldiers who are slaves won’t stay slaves any longer then they are willing to be.
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