# Just how backwards is Saudi Arabia? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 16, 2015, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978 "2015-01-16T14:47:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/21 "2015-01-16T17:59:12Z")
Iran _also_ has lots of oil, and our relationship with them is largely poor because we toppled their government to allow a friendly despot to retake power (and start selling us oil on the cheap again.) Our relationship with Saudi Arabia is basically only what it is because the Sauds are (mostly) more interested in money than ideology. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/22 "2015-01-16T18:33:55Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Our relationship with Saudi Arabia is basically only what it is because the Sauds are (mostly) more interested in money than ideology. And so are we, demonstrably ;). ---
**Author:** ![Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8c91f0/32.png) [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bam_Boo_Gut)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/23 "2015-01-16T18:42:24Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > as a result Saudi Arabia is an extremely safe place to walk around at night. It’s different for girls. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/24 "2015-01-16T18:44:04Z")
> [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](#): > > It’s different for girls. They aren’t allowed out without a male relative as escort. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/25 "2015-01-16T18:44:02Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > And so are we, demonstrably ;). I sure am. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/26 "2015-01-16T19:11:04Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > And how much time did the bus driver have to try to demonstrate that he did not cause the accident? Maybe, raise a reasonable doubt whether he had caused the accident? What help did he have from legal counsel to defend himself? In this case that not really relevant, as this sounds suspiciously like a story an expat heard and simply repeated. A death [penalty in Saudi has to be confirmed by](http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/saudi_arabia.htm#_Toc200894567) Court of Appeal (they call it that, but it’s procedure is more like that of cassation courts rather than Appeals heard in Common law countries). Saudi court system are fascinating to a student of legal systems. The trial courts for law (they have a division between administrative law courts and general law courts) are presided by judges and unless there is a specific statute in the field, they are free to make any decision that they think is just and appropriate in the circumstances as long as it does not violate the Quran and the Hadith. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/27 "2015-01-16T21:08:51Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > The trial courts for law (they have a division between administrative law courts and general law courts) are presided by judges and unless there is a specific statute in the field, they are free to make any decision that they think is just and appropriate in the circumstances as long as it does not violate the Quran and the Hadith. Sounds like they can execute a fellow for double parking. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Uniqueorn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uniqueorn/32/2807_2.png) [@Uniqueorn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uniqueorn)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/28 "2015-01-16T21:34:13Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > So like any society, it’s evolving. My guess is that when the change comes, it will be a palace revolt by the younger western-educated princes who will have a difficult time taking out the Wahabi religious police and it will be messy. I’m just not sure what any of the western-educated Saudis would gain from a revolt. They have the best of both worlds. If they want to get drunk and party, they pop over to Bahrain (the nightclubs in Manama are full of drunk Saudis on the weekend). They want western TV, they download or stream it. I don’t think freedom of speech or expression is such a strong driver and I’m not sure if support of equal rights would be sufficient impetus for a revolution if you haven’t been brought up thinking that equality is important. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/29 "2015-01-16T23:04:18Z")
“Flogging” _snerk_ ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/30 "2015-01-17T00:53:54Z")
[QUOTE=smith537] Cutting people’s heads off is backward. Many would even argue that any form on government mandated death penalty is backward. But beheading particularly so due to it’s brutal and horrific nature. [/QUOTE] So a quick death by beheading is worse than having [drugs injected into your arm, when you say “I feel my whole body burning,” and then take 10 minutes to die?](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/us/ohio-execution-using-untested-drug-cocktail-renews-the-debate-over-lethal-injections.html) [Or that you have unknown, untested drugs injected into your groin, you go into convulsions and die of a heart attack after half an hour?](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/05/02/what-it-was-like-watching-the-botched-oklahoma-execution/) The death penalty is the barbarism. How it is administered is merely secondary. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/31 "2015-01-17T01:06:21Z")
> [@razncain](#): > > If I read the link right, 19 of those beheadings were just for that one month. In 2013 [Amnesty International](http://amnesty.org/en/news/saudi-arabia-beheading-nearly-two-people-week-year-2013-02-08) says SA was averaging two beheadings a week starting out for that year, not sure if they kept that average up. In 2011, AI says at least 82 executions took place. It said 2012 showed a similar number. According to the Guardian, Saudia Arabia slipped a bit, and only killed 79 people in 2013, bringing them in 4th on the list of death penalty states. Number 5 on the list was North Korea, with 70 dead, followed by number 6 on the list, the United States, with 39 killed. [Death penalty statistics 2013: country by country](http://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/2014/mar/27/death-penalty-statistics-2013-by-country) ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/32 "2015-01-17T01:38:29Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > So a quick death by beheading is worse than having [drugs injected into your arm, when you say “I feel my whole body burning,” and then take 10 minutes to die?](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/us/ohio-execution-using-untested-drug-cocktail-renews-the-debate-over-lethal-injections.html) > > [Or that you have unknown, untested drugs injected into your groin, you go into convulsions and die of a heart attack after half an hour?](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/05/02/what-it-was-like-watching-the-botched-oklahoma-execution/) > > The death penalty is the barbarism. How it is administered is merely secondary. The “burning” guy had the advantage of a few years of appeal, as opposed to being arrested on Monday, tried on Tuesday, executed on Wednesday. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/33 "2015-01-17T02:00:45Z")
> [@razncain](#): > > [The latest news](http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/16/opinion/saudi-arabia-blogger-rizvi/index.html) coming out of Saudi Arabia is for the blogger who is going to receive 1,000 public lashes, to be delivered 50 a week for one year, along with ten years in prison and one million riyals fine. Being the humanitarians that they are, the second round of 50 lashes was withheld this Friday for medical reasons, saying his present lashes hasn’t healed enough yet. > > So what are his charges? Raif was officially charged with adopting liberal thought, founding a liberal website, and insulting Islam. Raif was found guilty of blasphemy and apostasy. A Pew Research poll still finds that a large number of Muslim countries still favor the death penalty for leaving Islam, but it looks like SA will let him keep his head. > > Reading from the link I provided it says in the same month that ISIS beheaded the journalist of James Foley, SA publically beheaded 19 people. The crimes ranged from smuggling cannabis, to sorcery. Limb amputations for theft are also sanctioned by the state religion. > > What strange bedfellows we have for allies. Anyone have any experience living in SA? Ever attended a public beheading or flogging? Thing is if it was not for the oil Saudi Arabia or Iran most western counties would never have traded with them thus the counties economy would be dirt poor forcing them to adopt to 21 century. But the problem is far leftists in Europe are opposed to the embargo. Than you got Asian countries that would never put a embargo on them because they use them as proxy. Look at North Korea extreme poverty,starvation, shortage of goods and service:mad::mad::mad: if China or Russia stop supporting them they would have been shut down long ago. If the US ever found fusion power Saudi Arabia and Iran would be dirt poor. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/34 "2015-01-17T02:07:21Z")
> [@Uniqueorn](#): > > I’m just not sure what any of the western-educated Saudis would gain from a revolt. > > They have the best of both worlds. If they want to get drunk and party, they pop over to Bahrain (the nightclubs in Manama are full of drunk Saudis on the weekend). They want western TV, they download or stream it. > > I don’t think freedom of speech or expression is such a strong driver and I’m not sure if support of equal rights would be sufficient impetus for a revolution if you haven’t been brought up thinking that equality is important. People are scared to protest on street for right for freedom of speech,democracy and equal rights and stuff because of the totalitarian government. Just like in Egypt. Yet the US and western counties trade with them like they are friends. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/35 "2015-01-17T02:24:17Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Wasn’t just an accident, several children died. > Which doesn’t alter the fact that the justice system is a complete sham. Yah, about that. I seem to remember the religious police forcing little girls back into a burning building because they didn’t have their head coverings on. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/36 "2015-01-17T02:32:20Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Yah, about that. I seem to remember the religious police forcing little girls back into a burning building because they didn’t have their head coverings on. What’s that got to do with it? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/37 "2015-01-17T02:50:50Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > What’s that got to do with it? I would imagine that it indicates that a state run by a repressive religion is a Bad Thing. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/38 "2015-01-17T02:52:54Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > The “burning” guy had the advantage of a few years of appeal, as opposed to being arrested on Monday, tried on Tuesday, executed on Wednesday. 🙂 As I reflect upon it, he was not screaming in pain, he was complaining and remarking that he loved Jesus, his Wife, and child, despite his raping and murdering his girl friend’s baby. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/39 "2015-01-17T02:54:57Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Sorry, but I don’t buy into this whole cultural relativity thing where all traditions and values are considered valid and should be respected and there is no right or wrong. Some traditions and values are objectively wrong and a step backward in the development of any civilization. > > Monarchies and other hereditary systems of government are backward. People should have some say in how they are ruled and who rules them. > > … > So yeah. If you believe in things like justice, equal rights, science instead of mysticism, education over ignorance, then yes, these countries are pretty darn backward. And they should care exactly why ? You are entitled to your own opinions, no matter how odd, but they, nor anyone else, are not obligated to share those opinions nor conform to anything anyone in the world thinks, unless that other can exert sufficient force to impel obedience. Just like daily governance in the west, _sans_ veils. For the record I detest Saudi as a regime. If only because they are an elective monarchy rather than through primogeniture. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978/40 "2015-01-17T03:10:36Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > One word of advice I got from an ex-pat living there was that if I ever got into an automobile accident I should get out of my car and run as fast as I can away from the scene since as a foreigner it was automatically my fault and would take months to get sorted out by the US Embassy, meanwhile being stuck in a SA jail with very few rights. It sounds like things have become more liberal. In the late 1960s, a Western European salesman for my fathers’s firm struck a Saudi woman with his car (she may have died, I don’t recall). He was sentenced to public amputation of his left arm. The only concession to his government was to allow an embassy visit and they drugged him just before the sentence was carried out. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-backwards-is-saudi-arabia/709978.md?page=3)