Saudi Woman Beheaded for Practicing Witchcraft

Amina bint Abdulhalim Nassar was executed in the northern province of Jawf for “practising witchcraft and sorcery,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement Monday. Newsflash: if she was caught, convicted, and executed for practicing witchcraft and sorcery, she wasn't a witch or sorcerer, or at least not a very good one.

A Saudi woman was beheaded Monday after being convicted of practising sorcery, which is banned in the ultra-conservative kingdom, the Interior Ministry said.

Amina bint Abdulhalim Nassar was executed in the northern province of Jawf for “practising witchcraft and sorcery,” the ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency. Read more

Saudi Arabia's "Anti-Witchcraft Unit" Breaks Another Spell

An anti-witchcraft unit, established in 2009, is charged with apprehending sorcerers and reversing the detrimental effects of their spells in Saudi Arabia.

When the severed head of a wolf wrapped in women's lingerie turned up near the city of Tabouk in northern Saudi Arabia this week, authorities knew they had another case of witchcraft on their hands, a capital offence in the ultra-conservative desert kingdom.

Agents of the country’s Anti-Witchcraft Unit were quickly dispatched and set about trying to break the spell that used the beast’s head.

Saudi Arabia takes witchcraft so seriously that it has banned the Harry Potter series by British writer J.K. Rowling, rife with tales of sorcery and magic. It set up the Anti-Witchcraft Unit in May 2009 and placed it under the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPV), Saudi Arabia's religious police. Read more