An executioner explains

[Karlos]

X-ray wrote:
http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1322#

Quite interesting, he is totally detached from it, emotionally. I would have thought he would have had serious issues with this, having seen his father execute someone when he was only a lad. He says also that he has executed people he knows. I don't know if I could execute someone, but I definitely wouldn't be able to execute someone I know  :-o

Executing people for a living, regardless of the method isn't the sort of thing I would think the normal human being is capable of. His emotional detachment from his work doubtless speaks volumes about his mental health.

Saudi is keen to enforce sharia punishment as a deterrant but is far less bothered about the justice system behind it. Consequently a lot of people end up facing this penalty on the flimsiest of convictions when it is supposed to be the last resort for the soundest convictions for the worst crimes.

[Karlos]

I'd rather not do either ;-)

[Karlos]

@thread

Information from the DPIC seems to suggest that all present forms of execution used in the US take longer and are typically more painful* than being decapitated.

*lethal injection shouldn't be if done properly but there are reported cases of it failing due to misinjection of the various chemicals into muscle tissue etc.

[Karlos]

@X-Ray

In another, much older thread, you said that the bullet through the head thing was often fatal due to the loss of blood pressure in the brain rather than the immediate damage to the brain tissue itself. I would assume that decapitation would cause this effect every time, since the carotid arteries would be totally severed. The worst thing about decapitation by sword (other than the grim spectacle), I imagine, is when it takes more than one stroke :-/

As for the metal plates, think of the cleaning problems...

To be fair, *if* you must execute people I guess that the most  humane way would be to gas them with an anesthetic until overdose - or administering a heart stopping drug once fully under.

There'd be no risk of misinjection into body tissues, no frying, no slow strangulation at the end of a rope, no struggling against the first wisps of bitter almond, no repeated blows with a blunted sword, no waiting for the firing squad. Just sleepiness then oblivion...

[Karlos]

It was a really old thread. You wrote something to that effect, complete with an example from some investiagtion involving a guys body being found some distance from where he was shot in the head having apparently walked there (or maybe somebody else gave that example), in response to a post quoting that a palestinian girl that was shot in the head by a sniper (according to the source) managed to say "allahu akbar" before dying...

-edit-

Must be old as hell, I remember Kenny was in it.

[Karlos]

CannonFodder wrote:
@Karlos

Mr resident Muslim sir, is death by sword the only allowed way to execute a criminal according to the Quran/Hadith?

No, that's just the one prescribed by Saudi. There are worse ways, especially historically. I think stoning is the worst, it's in no way different from being beaten to death and was used as a serious deterrent for many crimes.

However, where the penalty for a crime is death, there is nothing of which I am aware that specifically insists one method or another must be used. For many years, death by firing squad was used in Saudi, beheadding was (re)introduced more recently. I am not aware of any fatwah that would preclude the use of more humane methods of execution*

*if you can regard execution as humane in the first place.

I'm not a pro-death penalty supporter per se, but I don't think the option should be totally forbidden either as there  are certain criminals (guilty on multiple counts of the most horrific types of crime) who are perhaps beyond rehabilitation and classes of crime (eg genocide etc) for which the example of zero tolerance applies**. I guess that's about as "on the fence" as you can get in a subject as polarised as this one...

**yes, I am well aware of the irony in this statement; after all, genocide -> state sanctioned murder of many; death penalty for those guilty of it -> state sanctioned murder of one.

[Karlos]

@Cannonfodder

CannonFodder wrote:

metalman wrote:
...
The guillotine is the French approved "civilised" way to remove heads.  The English used an axe or a sword to behead.

None of these methods are "Cruel and Unusual".

That's as maybe, but "Would beheading murderers be civilized if it was performed in America?"

I think he said yes.