Human Rights Watch has written to King Abdullah complainingabout the growing number of “sorcery” cases in Saudi Arabia.

"Saudi courts are sanctioning a literal witch hunt by the religious police," the organisation says. "The crime of ‘witchcraft' is being used against all sorts of behaviour, with the cruel threat of state-sanctioned executions."

The latest case is that of Lebanese-born Ali Sabat, who has been sentenced to death in connection with advice and predictions he gave on Lebanese television.

Arab satellite channels often feature programmes with horoscopes and advice that Saudi clerics regard as sorcery.

"Sorcerers who appear on satellite channels who are proven to be sorcerers have committed a great crime ... and the Muslim consensus is that the apostate's punishment is death by the sword," one prominent cleric, Sheikh Saleh al-Fozan, told al-Madina newspaper in September. "Those who call in to these shows should not be accorded Muslim rites when they die," he added.

According to an article in Arab News last September, “Hardly a day passes without a local newspaper reporting the arrest of a sorcerer in the kingdom, something that is indicative of the widespread meddling in sorcery.”

Despite the kingdom’s austere religious façade, superstition persists on a grand scale and is exploited by charlatans who extract large sums of money from the gullible either to work magic or undo evil spells supposedly cast by others.

The main problem with criminalising sorcery, as I wrote in an article a couple of years ago, is that it involves giving official recognition to “magical” powers – which in turn reinforces popular belief in them. People who extort money for casting “spells” should be charged with fraud, not witchcraft. 

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 25 November 2009.