Petrelis Files

Saudis Beheaded for Raping a Man

The Agence France-Presse news wire carried a story on December 27 about the execution of two men in Saudi Arabia for male-on-male rape, which ran in the Kuwait Times newspaper.

There's noting explicitly homosexually-related in the article, so it's impossible at this point, based only on this piece and what ran a few days ago in the French Tetu magazine, without access to court documents or statements from human rights groups, to say the death penalty was carried out even partially because the executed were homosexuals. However, it's still crucial to monitor these cases when they arise, and to remember the Saudi Arabian courts are not transparent and that homosexuals are subject to many human rights violations by the government.

For more information about gay life in the kingdom, including how sodomy is punishable by death, read this article from the Atlantic magazine last year.

Here's some of the AFP story:

RIYADH: Two Saudis were beheaded by the sword in Saudi Arabia yesterday after being convicted of raping a man, the interior ministry said. Nasser Al-Harby and Majid Al-Sibeiy entered a room of the unidentified man while he was sleeping before beating him, tying him up and raping him, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency. The beheadings in the capital Riyadh bring to 100 the total number of executions this year in the ultra-conservative Gulf kingdom.

In 2007, a record 153 people were executed in the country, which applies a strict version of sharia, or Islamic law. That compared with 37 in 2006 and the previous record of 113 in 2000. Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry the death penalty in the ultra-conservative country, where executions are usually carried out in public ...

The AFP reporter should have written that sodomy can lead to the death penalty in Saudi Arabia.