Cruel, or just unusual?
A look at Saudi Arabia’s Islamic laws and the judges who apply those laws
NEXT to Afghanistan, no country imposes tougher Islamic laws than Saudi Arabia. The resort to beheading, hand-chopping and whipping fuels tabloid gore and human-rights outrage. Yet, cruel as the system often is, the deeper trouble may lie less with the letter of the law than with the obtuse, opaque and clumsy ways it is applied. Inefficiency, not excess, is what is now prompting belated efforts at reform.
This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline "Cruel, or just unusual?"
From the June 16th 2001 edition
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