Kingdom of Horrors

The facts speak for themselves:

"Saudi Arabia yesterday beheaded 37 Saudi citizens, most of them minority Shiites, in a mass execution... for alleged terrorism-related crimes... It marked the largest number of executions in a single day in Saudi Arabia since January 2, 2016, when the kingdom executed 47 people for terrorism-related crimes in what was the largest mass execution carried out by Saudi authorities since 1980. Among those executed three years were four Shiites, including prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr... " (Saudi Arabia beheads 37 mostly Shiite citizens, Aya Batrawy, AP/The Sydney Morning Herald, 25/4/19)

Then comes this :

"King Salman ratified by royal decree yesterday's mass execution and that of 2016. He has asserted a more decisive leadership style than previous monarchs since ascending to the throne in 2015." (ibid)

WTF? No 'brutal despot' here. No 'butcher'. Just a guy with "a more decisive leadership style" than his predecessors.

The fact is that anti-Shiite sectarianism and persecution has always been a characteristic of Saudi Wahhabi rule. The House of Saud and its fanatical Wahhabi brand of Islam had been around in the Nejd since the 18th century but were unable to dominate the whole of the territory of what is known today as Saudi Arabia until after World War I, and this with help - of course - from Great Britain.

The Saudi dynasty's twentieth century shock troops were the ultra-Wahhabi fanatics, the ISIS of their day, known as the Ikhwan. What follows comes from a to-do list drawn up by the Ikhwan in 1925. It outlines just what they expect the Saudi ruler of the time, Ibn Saud, to do about the Shiite population of eastern Arabia:

"As to the Shi'a, we have told our Imam that our ruling is that they must be asked to surrender to true Moslems, and should not be allowed to perform their misguided religious rites in public. We ask that the Imam should order his Viceroy in Hasa to summon the Shi'a to Sheikh Ibn Bishr, before whom they should undertake to follow the religion of God and His Prophet, to cease all prayer to the saintly members of the Prophet's house or others, to cease their heretical innovations such as the commemoration rites performed on the anniversaries of the deaths of members of the House of the Prophet and all other such rites performed in error, and that they should cease to visit the so-called sacred cities such as Karbala and Najaf. They must also attend compulsorily at the Five Prayers in the Mosques, along with the rest of the congregation, and Sunni Imams and muezzins, each with an assistant, should be appointed to instruct them. Shi'as must also be forced to study Sheikh Ibn Abdul Wahhab's Three Principles.

"Any places specially erected for the practice of their rites must be destroyed, and all these practices forbidden in mosques or anywhere else.

"Any Shi'as who refuse to keep to these rules must be exiled from Moslem territory.

"With regard to the Shi'as of Qatif, the Imam (may God give him strength!) should compel the Sheikh Ibn Bishr to go and see personally that our requirements are carried. We have advised the Imam to send missionaries and teachers to certain districts and villages which have now come under the rule of true Moslems, and to order his viceroys, emirs and other officials to co-operate with these missionaries in bringing these people back to Islam and forbidding sins and lawlessness." (Arabian Days, Sheikh Hafiz Wahba, 1964, pp 135-6)