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"I inherited the job from my late father. At first, I used to accompany him. On my first mission, I was terrified. I wasn't afraid that the execution would fail. No. I was worried that if I failed, the people there would laugh at me," Saudi executioner Abdallah Al-Bishi told the interviewer in a program aired on Abu Dhabi TV recently. "Once the mission is done, I feel relieved. I come home relaxed. I play with the children. We have fun. We have lunch. Sometimes we go out. Other times, we stay at home. Everything is normal. It has no effect on me."
Sometimes his children also join him. "We sit with him and have fun together. Sometimes, we join him for an execution. The first time I went there, I was frightened. When the first guy was executed, I stood a bit towards the back, but when I saw that there was nothing to it, and that there was no reason to be afraid, I came in closer to watch. There was no problem," Al-Bishi's son told the TV audience.
Capital punishment is practiced for murder in several countries of the world. According to Amnesty International statistics, a total of 1,200 people were executed throughout the world in 2007. Of these 523 executions took place in four Middle East countries: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iraq.
What are the results? The graph above compares the murder rates (in number of murders per 100,000 population per year) of Iran and Saudi Arabia with those of selected Middle East and industrialized countries (source: Wikipedia). The graph speaks for itself.
