RIYADH—A gay couple was beaded in a public execution Sunday [March 13, 2005] in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of killing a blackmailer. If they had been exposed as gay they could have been executed anyway.
Homosexuality is punishable by flogging, lengthy prison terms or death under Sharia Islamic law.
The Saudi Interior Ministry issued a statement Sunday announcing the execution. It said that Ahmed al-Enezi and Shahir al-Roubli, both Saudis, ran over Malik Khan in their car, beat him on the head with stones and set fire to his corpse “fearing they would be exposed after the victim witnessed them in a shameful situation”.
The term “shameful situation” is regularly used by the government to refer to homosexual acts.
The ministry said the two men were executed in the northern town of Arar, near the Iraq border.
The Saudi government routinely rounds up people suspected of being gay. All that is needed is a complaint from someone. In some instances men who are not gay who have been arrested were picked up on the complaint of a neighbor following a dispute.
The kingdom also, on a number of occasions, has blocked access to the only gay Arab news and information site on the internet.
On this day..
- 1979: Gen. Nader Jahanbani and eleven others
- 1889: Samuel Rylands, the first hanged at Shepton Mallet
- 1663: Alexander Kennedy, forger of false bonds and writts
- 1601: Henry Cuffe, mingled interest
- 1951: Ants Kaljurand, Estonian Forest Brother
- 1569: Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Conde, at the Battle of Jarnac
- 1493: Peter Dane, in the Sternberger Hostienschänderprozess
- 1996: Thomas Reckley, the first in Bahamas in 12 years
- 1956: Jesus Maria de Galindez
- 1985: Stephen Morin, serial killer convert
- 1858: Felice Orsini, Italian revolutionary
- D
- 1998: Bahram Khan, by his victim's brother