Most Wanted!

Saudi official: Death for ‘immoral’ network owners – International Herald Tribune — This is a tough audience!

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia: A senior Saudi official said Sunday that owners of satellite TV networks that show “immoral” content should be brought to trial and sentenced to death if other penalties don’t deter them from airing such broadcasts.

The comments by Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan, the chief of the kingdom’s highest tribunal, the Supreme Judiciary Council, were an attempt to explain a fatwa, or decree, he issued last week, in which he said just that it was permissible to kill the network’s owners.

Appearing on government-run Saudi TV Sunday, al-Lihedan seemed to be trying to calm the controversy his original comments triggered, explaining that the owners of offending networks should be warned and punished before possibly being brought to trial and executed.

On Sunday, he said his “advice” was aimed at owners who broadcast witchcraft, indecent programs, shows that mock scholars or the religious police and comedies that are not appropriate for Ramadan.

Government-run channels in deeply conservative Saudi Arabia steer well clear of any programming that could be deemed risque. However, on satellite broadcasts it is possible to see Western music videos as well as American soaps and TV series, such as “Sex and the City,” that include some nudity.

“If they are not deterred by the punishment and continue corrupting people through the broadcasts, then it is permissible for the relevant authorities to kill them after trials,” al-Lihedan told Saudi TV. A transcript of the interview was carried by the official Saudi Press Agency in Arabic and English.




  1. csa819 says:

    Does this give us tacit Saudi approval to “KILL” all of the Saudi billonaires that come to the US and practice all of the amoral behavior he speaks of?

  2. RBG says:

    …al-Lihedan seemed to be trying to calm the controversy his original comments triggered, explaining that the owners of offending networks should be warned and punished before possibly being brought to trial and executed.

    So they’re not completely unreasonable over there as some of you would like to believe…

    All that said, I can think of a few shows that could benefit from a whacked producer or two.

    RBG

  3. RBG says:

    [QUIT DOUBLE_POSTING!!! — the editors]

    RBG

  4. RBG says:

    Time to buy a new mouse…

    RBG

  5. dejavuyou says:

    I’d dare the little twit to try it and use it as an excuse to rid the world of muslim cleric assholes. The good ones can stay as long as they keep their hideous opinions to themselves.

  6. Ultraslug says:

    Time to buy a new mouse…

    Now you, too, must die — http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=2771

  7. Ron Larson says:

    When I first heard this it struck me as giving religious permission for any Islamic nutter to murder anyone affiliated with the production or distribution of any television content deemed to be offensive in the eyes of the murderer.

    Wow.

    Your show offended me (even though I actually never saw it), so it is OK for me to murder you.

    Now this cleric is backpedaling and now inserts “a sham trial in front of a Sharia court is needed first”. Yea, Right.

    What blows me away most of all is how these clerics take the role of God, and worse, grant it to the unwashed and uneducated brainwashed masses, to take a life, which God gave, because THEY think God might appreciate it.

    It astounds me that they think that God is not powerful enough enough to take care of things that offend him. What they are doing is the worst sin of all, assuming the powers of God, and deciding on his behalf who should live and die.

  8. Bill says:

    Why don’t they cut off all media/internet/communication to the ‘outside world’?

    Then they could control their part of the world.

  9. OhForTheLoveOf says:

    Glad these fucks are our valued allies in the War on Terror.

  10. Sinn Fein says:

    Killing TV producers and network owners as quality control? Hmmmm, he might be on to something! Overnight, programming would improve and then instead of having 500+ channels with nothing on to watch, extreme quality control could bump that figure down to only 300 channels with nothing to watch.

  11. Right says:

    What a bunch of hypocritical asses. The ones proposing this are probably more corrupt than they want you to know. Some investigative reporting on them would more than likely turn up some things they wouldn’t want the world to see.
    By the way Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan, how’s Bambi and Bubbles?

  12. Just keep chanting “Death to America!” in children’s television and you’ll be just fine.

  13. Brendal says:

    Denmark does not apologize…nor should anyone else.

  14. bugeyemonster says:

    Kill em all. Specially those fools in charge of MTV. What ever happened to the music video? I say public executions for the fools that replaced music videos with trashy reality nonsense.

  15. Improbus says:

    Kill network executives? How can I help?

  16. mickleby says:

    I think this topic is a delightful argument IN FAVOR of colonialism.

    These bozos have oil we want, so we make them billionaires with power? I’m thinking the Iraq occupation makes a lot of sense in this light…

  17. Improbus says:

    @mickleby

    [sarcasm]

    Why not commit genocide an just take their land? Save the bother of trying to govern the heathens.

    [end sarcasm]

  18. eyeofthetiger says:

    http://tinyurl.com/5zqzug

    Oh so that’s what Queen was singing about:

    Everybody drank my wine – you get my drift,
    And then we took a holiday on khashoggi’s Ship – well,
    We really had a good good time they was all so sexy
    We was bad, we was blitzed,
    All in all it was a pretty good trip,

  19. chuck says:

    I’m always amazed when people can balance the obvious hypocrisy of calling for the death of another human being in response to immorality.

    You’d think that in such a tiny, narrow mind, there’d be no room for such contradiction.

  20. Satan says:

    @20

    Sadly, there is just enough room….

  21. QB says:

    I have felt the urge to kill the Sex and the City producers, but for entirely different reasons.

  22. gquaglia says:

    You wonder why most of the world laughs at these people.

  23. gquaglia says:

    I’m always amazed when people can balance the obvious hypocrisy of calling for the death of another human being in response to immorality.

    You’d think that in such a tiny, narrow mind, there’d be no room for such contradiction.

    Welcome to Islam, the religion of peace!

  24. RTaylor says:

    The Saudi Royal family uses extremists as an end to their means. Liberal Western thinking might spur democratic reforms and kicking their fat asses out in the desert. They have always feared their own people, as well they should.

  25. jopa says:

    #18: “Why not commit genocide an just take their land? Save the bother of trying to govern the heathens.”

    A good idea!!!!!!!

  26. test says:

    [Comment deleted – Violation of Posting Guidelines. – ed.]

  27. badtimes says:

    #9- my first thought also. Our Allies!
    With this mindset, is it any wonder this is where most of the 9/11 hijackers originated?

  28. saudi allies says:

    Sorry, I can’t be outraged about this. Saudi Arabia is a modern Christian democracy and an ally in the war on terror. George HW Bush helps them be the friend of the USA. Don’t say bad things about them.

  29. The Pirate says:

    This is one small step back for man, one giant crap-in-the-pants leap backwards for the followers of Allah.

    Welcome to the 7th century, again, and again, and a-fscking-gain. If you don’t like skin or porn or the ‘nasty’ sex then don’t watch it. Please don’t make up fatwa BS and then kill people, even after the illusion of a trial.

    Until Muslims get a clue, the clue will continue to screw them. Hard. Stick that up your Fatwa Saleh al-Lihedan, chief of the kingdom’s highest tribunal, the Supreme Judiciary Asshole Council.

  30. Jägermeister says:

    Forget about it… The Saudis are dear friends…


1

Bad Behavior has blocked 9369 access attempts in the last 7 days.