Latest Saudi Fatwa: Kill Satellite TV Execs

What is it with fatwas and fanatics?

Sheikh Saleh Al-Laheedan is chairman of Saudi Arabia's Supreme Judiciary Council, the 12-member supreme court of religious law in the Saudi kingdom. Talking on Radio Quran's "Noorun Aladdarb" program this week, he was asked about the effects of satellite television piped into Saudi Arabia. Here was his answer, according to the Arabic daily Al Watan, as quoted in Saudi Arabia's Arab News:

"Those calling for fitna (sedition and immorality) and those who are able to prevent it but don’t, it is permissible to kill them," meaning kill the owners of satellite channels telecasting immoral programs during Ramadan. "It is legitimate to kill those who encourage corruption in faith and action if their evil cannot be stopped by other penalties." Arab News went on to say that this man, who's not by any means two bit charlatan spouting fatwas on an errant blog but one of the Arab world's most powerful authorities on Islamic law, "also explained that a person could be killed not only for murdering another person but also for corrupting faith and morality."

To quote Jon Stewart: "Are you insane?"

Saudi Arabia's television channels are strictly regulated and censored, but satellite television is not, so Saudis can get their dose of Oprah and American Idol all they like. That should not mean the murder of television execs, should it? Well, yes it should, according to Al-Laheedan: "I want to advise the owners of these channels, who broadcast programs containing indecency and vulgarity... and I warn them of the serious consequences. What does the owner of these networks think, when he provides seduction, obscenity and vulgarity?"

The fairer question, not asked of the sheikh, are these: what does he think he's calling for when he legitimizes the murder of innocent people broadcasting material he and his perversely puritanical Wahhabi sensibilities happen to consider offensive?

It was left up to a more reasonable Saudi scholar to attack the fatwa. Sheikh Abdul Mohsin Nasser al-Obeikan, according to Qatar's Gulf Times, said the edict would “promote terrorism” and that "the extremist elements will take advantage of the fatwa and start recruiting our young people to bomb the locations of such TV stations." Al-Obeikhan is also an adviser at the Saudi ministry of justice, so his words won't go unheard. "They will welcome it and use it as a means to induce more young men as they did before to send them to Iraq for launching jihad."

More to the point, al-Obeikan said "the fatwa will have major negative repercussions on the state, the image of Islam, as well as on the Saudi judiciary system." As if Islam needed more help in that department. This is not the end of it. But what's most encouraging is to hear authoritative voices within the dungeon of Saudi Islamic law speak up in direct contradiction to one of their most powerful clerics. That may be the more significant story here, depending on whose voice, ultimately, prevails.