Saudi Arabia unveiled. A documentary...
Leone Grotti
For six months the journalists ITV and PBS filmed with hidden cameras the life of the Kingdom, including beheadings and repression. And where children are taught: "Christians should be beheaded"
The raised arms of two cranes held suspended in air at about ten meters high a bar to which are hanging five bodies without a head. They belonged to the five thieves, decapitated and then hung for days, as a warning to all citizens. This scene was not filmed in the territories controlled by the Islamic state, but in Saudi Arabia, ruled by an Islamic regime among the most repressive in the world.
SAUDI ARABIA REVEALED. For six months the British ITV issuer journalists and the American PBS filmed with hidden cameras the life of the Kingdom, action illegal and liable to be judged as an act of terrorism. So they created the documentary Uncovered Saudi Arabia (Saudi Arabia unveiled), which is broadcast in recent weeks in three parts of 20 minutes and showing the different facets of the Saudi regime.
BEHEADED. Besides images of hanging bodies, the cameras shooting horrible scenes of beheadings and crucifixions, penalties provided for by Sharia, Islamic law that is in force in the country, and more and more often imposed by the authorities. In 2015 we were beheaded more than 150 people but this year 70 people were executed in less than three months. On death row there is also a guy named Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, who was arrested in 2012 at the age of 17 years for participating in an illegal protest and sentenced definitively to beheading and crucifixion.
"JUST A BOY." The documentary shows the boy's mother, who talks about how his son dreamed 'dignity and freedom. " He also talks about his father, who explains: "When I saw my son after his arrest told me:" Dad what they mean "subversion and treason"? Were his accusations. Ali is just a boy. " According to the family, Ali was arrested because of his uncle, an important Shiite imam who for years denounced the repression and persecution suffered by the Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia, a country with a Sunni majority. Al-Nimr was beheaded in January, his nephew might meet the same fate very soon.
Oppressed women. In the movie it is also denounced the oppression of women, treated as second-class citizens, unable to uncover their head, to go out without a male escort, to drive. Some of the strongest images are concerned specifically with the treatment of women, insulted in the street by the religious police, which is to promote virtue and prevent vice, beaten and even lashes from ordinary citizens.
CASE BADAWI. The freedom of expression does not exist. For a criticism of the government or to one of his works can be
be convicted of terrorism and it is forbidden even to disagree on the precepts of Islam. In this sense the story is emblematic of the blogger Raif al-Badawi, who is told through interviews with his wife and three children, sentenced to 10 in prison and 1,000 lashes for having written this sentence on the Internet: "The only way to live in an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very life represents an act of rebellion. " After a very strong international protest worth of lashes he was suspended, but Al-Badawi remains in prison.
Fundamentalism EXPORTED. Saudi Arabia has also revealed that of Islamic fundamentalism exported around the world, through mosques and cultural centers around the globe where they are taught Wahhabism, a very similar version of Sunni Islam ultraconservative ideology of the Islamic state. The regime, which enjoys immense proceeds from the sale of oil, has spent about $ 70 billion in the promotion. It is no coincidence that 15 of the 19 people involved in the attack of 9/11 were Saudi.
"Behead all CHRISTIANS." Indoctrination of young people in Saudi Arabia and those around the world also happens through mosque sermons and school books. During a speech in the United resumed, the imam haranguing the faithful: "The Jews have abused, lorded and corrupted this land. Then, oh God, stop them and make them snap up the whip of torture, do not let their wave O'er the flag at the top and make them an example. " One child asked about what to tell her textbook on religion, repeated from memory: "What about the Shiites and the infidels? All Christians should be punished and beheaded until it is left even one. Shiites are blasphemous and should be punished by death. We should fight them in the name of Islam. " Before these times, we should not be surprised if one Algerian writer as Kamel Daoud invented this circumlocution to describe the regime: "Saudi Arabia is Isis who has done it."
