A Typical Weekly Beheading In Saudi Arabia (Photo: Saudi Insitute)

The Saudi Kingdom of Saudi Arabia brutally slaughtered like sheep six young Somali men without due process of law in the port city of Jeddah last Friday of April first 2005. The Interior ministry said that the Somalis were caught while in the process of robbery and piracy in which they wanted to seize a Taxi but the Saudi government had failed to produce any hard evidence in this regard or allow the young Somali men to have access to legal representation.

It is not clear what legal procedures or justice system the Saudis had applied because in accordance with Islam, you cannot kill people without due process of law and you cannot certainly execute people on unproven and dubious grounds. In the cases of robbery etc, the death penalty does not apply on Islamic jurisprudence. So it will be interesting to know what justice systems the Saudi state had applied to finish off the young Somalis.

Somalis at home and around the globe were saddened and dismayed by the cruel and heartless action taken by the Saudi state against 6 Somali men who were virtually refugees in Saudi Arabia.

To conclude, the Saudi state must give believable explanations as to why they executed the 6 Somali youths without fair and open trial. Similarly, the Saudis must alter their aggressive and merciless policies against the Somali people who happen to be in their country for whatever reason otherwise relations between the two peoples and nations will be severely damaged. This does not mean that the law should be overlooked but the manner in which the Saudi police and the security apparatus behave and deal with foreigners is most barbaric, uncivilised and utterly inhumane to say the least.

If I were the president of Somalia, I would have severed all relations with the Saudi government until they apologised and changed their bad treatments against the Somali people. The Saudis must understand the values of human dignity, the importance of God given life and the sacrosanct of God's justice.

Hassan S. Shirwa
E-mail: [email protected]