Turk Receives Death Penalty in Saudi Arabia – UPDATED
A Turkish-born barber, living and working in Saudi Arabia, was recently convicted for the ‘crime’ of apostasy and has been sentenced to death. The man, Sabri Bogday, had a quarrel with a person from Egypt and a Saudi during which he seemingly cursed the name of God. This is of course unacceptable in Saudi Arabia and… as a result, the judges of that country have decided that Bogday deserves to die.
With this case it’s important to act fast; on May 1, the Appeals Court confirmed the verdict of a lower court.
Bogday isn’t the only person in trouble in Saudi Arabia; a blogger is in trouble as well. ‘On May 5, the prosecution service in Jeddah charged Ra’if Badawi with “setting up an electronic site that insults Islam,” and referred the case to court, asking for a five-year prison sentence and a 3 million riyal (US$800,000) fine. Unknown persons have hacked Badawi’s website multiple times, and have published his phone numbers, work address, and a threat on the hacked site: “Oh you retard, you are in the land of Muhammad, peace be upon him. Underline ‘Muhammad’ with a thousand lines before a thousand swords are put above your neck!” Prosecutors have not investigated the hackers or the death threats against Badawi.’
Luckily for him, however, he escaped from Saudi Arabia.
You can read more about it here at Human Rights Watch. As Peter Slutsky points out HRW is the only organization currently trying to help these two individuals. That’s why Slutsky decided to post about it at the Huffington Post; he hopes that writing about it will help get the two out of jail. The more people know about these cases, the more likely it is that the Saudi government will receive angry letters, negative attention and political pressure. The same goes, of course, for the Turkish government (which should do everything in its power to help Bogday).
If you are Turk, or from Turkish origin, please send an e-mail to the Turkish government, the AK Parti leadership (awesome site in English), the MHP leadership and the CHP leadership. If you don’t live in Turkey please also send an e-mail to the Turkish embassy in which you live. And lets not forget Turkish newspapers like Today’s Zaman and Turkish Daily News (plus the Turkish language Turkish newspapers).
If you are not a Turk, please do the same (they can all read English) and also send an e-mail to your own government.
The e-mail addresses of the CHP are (just send an e-mail to all of them):
The e-mail addresses of the MHP:
Firstly, you can click on this link – it will take you to a form.
Secondly, you can send an e-mail to this address: bilgi@mhp.org.tr
The e-mail addresses of the AK Parti:
Reçep Tayyip Erdogan: rte@akparti.org.tr
If there are those who have more websites (related to the AK Parti), please add them in the comment section – I will add them later today to the post.
Today’s Zaman:
e.dumanli@todayszaman.com
a.bozkurt@todayszaman.com
b.kenes@todayszaman.com
u.bassey@todayszaman.com
f.demirelli@todayszaman.com
e.ulker@todayszaman.com
y.dogan@todayszaman.com
Turkish Daily News:
Click here to fill in a form.
nuri.colakoglu@newmediaco.net
david.judson@tdn.com.tr
nejat.basar@tdn.com.tr
alparslan.akkus@tdn.com.tr
taylan.bilgic@tdn.com.tr
hasan.kilic@tdn.com.tr
barcin.yinanc@tdn.com.tr
mustafa.akyol@tdn.com.tr
ozgur.korkmaz@tdn.com.tr
These people, parties and newspapers should spend lots of attention to these cases; publicity and political pressure are necessary right now. If you don’t do anything, chances are that Bogday will die.
I spent more attention to Bogday in this post because he’s still in Saudi Arabia whereas the blogger fled. The latter’s life is, therefore, not in immediate danger.
UPDATE
Here is the e-mail I sent to all the e-mail addresses given above:
Dear Sir / Madam,
It has come to my intention that a Turkish man, Sabri Bogday, has been convicted in Saudi Arabia for the crime of ‘apostasy.’ According to two Saudi courts (first the lower court, after that the Court of Appeals), Sabri Bey – a barber – had cursed the name of God. Since Saudi Arabia has Sharia (Seriat) law, this means that he is guilty of one of the worst crimes, and – seemingly – deserves to die.
Although I am not a Turk myself (I’m Dutch), my fiancée is and, as such, I visit Turkey often. I have been to your beautiful country several times and I have, as a result, come to know the Turkish people very well. It is not an exaggeration for me to say that I do not just love my fiancée, but also the Turkish people; a wonderful, kind, warm, generous, hospitable and polite people indeed.
It is therefore that I am saddened that no one seems to be doing something to safe Sabri Bey. He is a Turk – born in Turkey. He is culturally a product of Turkey… and he’s about to die, merely because he ‘cursed.’ It seems to me that everyone who cares about human rights, and about humanity, should try to safe this innocent soul from the death penalty. Especially Turkish politicians such as yourself should, as I see it, try to do everything in their power to keep Sabri Bey alive.
You can read about the conviction at Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/english
Kindest regards,
–
Michael van der Galiën
I don’t want to take away from this topic, but there seems no more relevant place on the site to point it out–The Huffington Post also now has an article that calls Gingrich an oil industry toadie who is intentionally pushing lies to the public—just because he believes it would be helpful to drill for oil in the US. No, he doesn’t just disagree, he’s ‘delivering his oily lies’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-roberts/gingrich-mounts-campaign_b_103917.html
Damask: not a big fan either, but they’re at least giving attention to this, whereas most other sites and newspapers are happily ignoring it.
why would they live in the land of Islam if they want to curse or criticize Islam?. That’s just plain stupid. If you live in a foreign country you shut your mouth and obey the country’s rules. No matter how cruel you think they are.
This may come as a shock to some of you, but cursing the name of God, or the Holy Book, or the name of the Prophet (or of the religion) is not uncommon among Turks. I am not saying that everybody does that; some are bound to be refined and not cursing at all, and some are going to resort to more conventional curses. Yet some would not shrink from this: "f*ck your religion, book, prophet, and god." This is hardly ever meant to be cursing at Islam, Quran, Mohammed, or Allah; rather, it expresses disbelief, protest and/or anger upon the other party’s person, his dubious attachment to or professing of such religious values.
I am guessing this poor barber did just that not realizing he was in a medieval country. I hope the Turkish government expands all effort, direct and indirect, to save him. Some proper orientation program could be instituted as well, to prepare the simple folks who want to seek livelihood in SA. My heart would be in having an outstanding MFA advisory to discourage Turkish people from going or living there, including the Hajj, and taking it one step further, cutting all relations with this sorry regime until its demise.
Nihat; yes, that is also my experience. In that way, they are quite similar to the Dutch. We often say "godverdomme" or "Jezus Christus." With that we obviously don’t mean that God should curse us, or that we are angry towards God, etc. It’s simply an expression of anger and / or of disbelief.
I also agree with that. Turkish – and other – Muslims should make clear that what happened in Saudi Arabia doesn’t jibe with their version of Islam.
Nor of humanity at that.
By the way, here is the e-mail I sent to all the e-mail addresses given above:
Dear Sir / Madam,
It has come under my intention that a Turkish man, Sabri Bogday, has been convicted in Saudi Arabia for the crime of ‘apostasy.’ According to two Saudi courts (first the lower court, after that the Court of Appeals), Sabri Bey – a barber – had cursed the name of God. Since Saudi Arabia has Sharia (Seriat) law, this means that he is guilty of one of the worst crimes, and – seemingly – deserves to die.
Although I am not a Turk myself (I’m Dutch), my fiancée is and, as such, I visit Turkey often. I have been to your beautiful country several times and I have, as a result, come to know the Turkish people very well. It is not an exaggeration for me to say that I do not just love my fiancée, but also the Turkish people; a wonderful, kind, warm, generous, hospitable and polite people indeed.
It is therefore that I am saddened that no one seems to be doing something to safe Sabri Bey. He is a Turk – born in Turkey. He is culturally a product of Turkey… and he’s about to die, merely because he ‘cursed.’ It seems to me that everyone who cares about human rights, and about humanity, should try to safe this innocent soul from the death penalty. Especially Turkish politicians such as yourself should, as I see it, try to do everything in their power to keep Sabri Bey alive.
You can read about the conviction at Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2008/05/13/saudia18816.htm), the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-and-peter-slutsky/barber-insults-islam-reci_b_103742.html), and PoliGazette (http://poligazette.com/2008/05/30/turk-receives-death-penalty-in-saudi-arabia/). I hereby ask you to do everything in your power, lütfen, to help safe Sabri Bey. As the old saying goes, he who saves one, saves all of mankind.
Kindest regards,
—
Michael van der Galiën
Tengre is the name of god, not Allah.
Allah is Saturn from "Bel Ilah" or Baal El (Lord God). The saturn god of the near east.
Does the truth blaspheme the lie? Hopefully the Turks will teach the desert primatives the virtue of freedom of thought.