Blogger sentenced to 1,000 lashes: Saudi Arabia's often-brutal pact with its clerics (STA BREAKING NEWS and ARCHIVES)

by Theresa , Sunday, January 25, 2015, 00:30

The anointment of the House of Saud more than three centuries ago came with a pledge to rule in tandem with the austere clerics of Wahhabi Islam whose puritanical theology has provided some of the underpinnings for extremist groups throughout the Middle East.

In Saudi Arabia, that partnership has left the royal family - often free-wheeling and free-spending in its own habits - presiding over a deeply conservative society with one of the worst human rights records on Earth.

Public beheadings routinely follow Friday prayers, drawing large crowds. A Burmese woman convicted of killing her stepdaughter met her fate last week at the hands of a swordsman in the streets of Mecca, screaming her innocence as she was held down by police, according to video distributed by human rights activists.

This month, a Saudi blogger become the subject of an international campaign to save him from a sentence of 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes spread over 20 weeks - a sentence so severe that doctors recommended that a second round of 50 lashes be postponed Friday because he had not healed from the first.

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