Did the Saudis close down Chop Chop Square?

[jmowreader]

It used to be, for a very long time, that Riyadh's Deera Square was the site where executions took place. It's a public place and the populace is welcome to watch. (It's also got a granite surface with a storm drain in the middle of it, all the better to clean up what little blood comes out of the bodies that have been pre-drained before being taken to the headsmen.) In recent years they cut down on the number of the beheaded who were crucified after their executions.

Now there seems to be a huge trend toward displaying bodies for three days after execution...are they executing them inside prison walls now?

[99th_Monkey]

1. When the Saudis do it, it's ok. Did't-cha know?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3625022

[jmowreader]

9. No, that's not what I was getting at

The Saudis have always conducted executions in public...and it used to be a great spectacle. The executions used to always be conducted on Friday right after Mosque on Fridays. Then they started doing them any day of the week but always at 9 a.m., and this was to reduce the number of tourists in attendance. (Probably also to further mentally abuse the condemned - if you knew they were going to chop your head off but you didn't know when, you'd be living in constant terror.) Together with the move away from Beheading As A Tourist Attraction was the move away from displaying the corpses to keep the people in line.

Now they seem to be displaying corpses more frequently; I'm thinkin' they started beheading in private but people were getting pissed that the regime was becoming soft on crime. The fairly dramatic fall in the number of executions per year (right now they're about 40-50 heads shy of last year's numbers) would lead the bloodthirsty to believe that maybe the regime was falling down on the job of doing Allah's Will...so they're displaying all the people they execute.

[99th_Monkey]

10. but it is what I am getting at

Why are you are attempting to poo-poo Saudi atrocities?

Oh that's right. They are an "important US ally". Never mind.

[Bluenorthwest]

2. Saudis do no wrong according to John Kerry, they are sterling moral examples and pay masters to us

all.

[Chan790]

3. I still want to see the House of Saud overthrown.

They're a brutal totalitarian state that oppresses their own people, as bad as any in the 20^th or 21^st centuries. They're the enemy of human rights and free people everywhere....such a state should never be an ally of the American people; they belong on the scrap-heap of history.

[roamer65]

4. As bad as they are, I'm scared to see what would replace them.

It very well could be extremist Wahhabi Islam and the blood would flow even more.

But I agree with you that we should not be allied with them.

[Chan790]

5. I was hoping for a Saudi Arab Spring uprising of Islamic Democracy but it never happened. n/t

[Aerows]

6. I am too.

They would likely get replaced by something so awful it would take the world to ruin.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. While it might be a valid argument, it is also the universal defense of really awful governments and

was in fact the reason some supported any genocidal regime you can name. 'The communists would be worse, at least these people keep the trains running'. I think when you are going to call a nation your ally and proudly tout their approval as Kerry does, the standard needs to be higher than 'oh well it could be worse'.

[Zorra]

8. The rest of the world should boycott Saudi oil and offer asylum to Saudi women

and Saudi LGBT.

Oh yeah, and crackdown hard on Saudi human trafficking.

Let the exodus begin.