Syrian merchant beheads toddler in Saudi market

[TithonusSyndrome]

You know you're pretty fucked in the head when a nation of fundie Muslims finds what you've done appalling

Toddler beheaded in supermarket

Edmund Tadros
March 4, 2008 - 1:51PM

A man reportedly held a knife to the throat of his 15-month-old nephew and decapitated him in front of his mother in a Saudi Arabian supermarket.

The 25-year-old Syrian man beheaded the toddler apparently after having a dispute with the toddler's parents, his sister and brother-in-law, Arab News reported.

Another newspaper, the Saudi Gazette, reported that the toddler was 18 months old.

The killing happened in front of shoppers and staff in the fruit and vegetable section of the Al-Marhaba supermarket yesterday morning.

A police officer told Arab News: "The murderer was in a dispute with the boy's mother and her husband. He chopped off the boy's head in front of the mother to get back at her."

Another witness, Abu Muhammad, who is in his mid-60s, told the paper: "It happened so quickly. Before people could intervene, the man had cut more than half way through the child's neck."

Another local expressed his disbelief that anyone could carry out such an act.

"No one could bear the gruesome sight of the boy's decapitated body lying on the floor," Muneer, a car mechanic, told Arab News.

"How could someone do such a thing?

"I just can't understand it ... I still can't believe it."

One shopper, Ahmed Abdul-Rahman, told the Saudi Gazette: "I was shopping when I heard a scream and saw people running toward the shop's pastry corner.

"When I arrived there, I couldn't believe what I saw.

"A headless body of a child lay on the floor and the head was lying nearby soaked in blood."

The man was arrested at the supermarket, reports AFP. Murder is punishable by death in the Islamic country, and the sentence is usually carried out by beheading.

Color me shocked - a mentally unstable man in a backwards religious state that probably doesn't have much in the way of a psychiatric community.

[Darth Servo]

Of course the Muslims acting shocked that one of them could do such a thing sounds eerily similar to theNigerian Witchcraft thread.

[Wicked Pilot]

People do fucked up things all over the globe for a variety or reasons. I don't see this particular story as any sort of indictment of Saudi's laws or the Islam that they're based off of.

TS, where do you intend for this discussion to go?

[TithonusSyndrome]

People do fucked up things all over the globe for a variety or reasons. I don't see this particular story as any sort of indictment of Saudi's laws or the Islam that they're based off of.

TS, where do you intend for this discussion to go?

Does it have to "go" anywhere? People post stories about callous coldblooded murders in N&P all the time, this is just one more of many. Is it really that hard to believe that in a country where sincerely troubled people are likely to be met with the rejoinder to seek answers in the Kuran and nothing else by way of assistance, that something like this would happen?

[RedImperator]

I actually don't see the point of posting stories like this anymore. I suppose there's a slim chance we'll get a discussion of the impact of religion on the development of mental health systems, or somesuch thing, but what I expect will actually result will be about 50% sadistic torture revenge fantasies and 50% swipes at Muslims, Islam, Saudi Arabia, and/or Syria that are only tangentially related to the topic.

[TithonusSyndrome]

I actually don't see the point of posting stories like this anymore. I suppose there's a slim chance we'll get a discussion of the impact of religion on the development of mental health systems, or somesuch thing, but what I expect will actually result will be about 50% sadistic torture revenge fantasies and 50% swipes at Muslims, Islam, Saudi Arabia, and/or Syria that are only tangentially related to the topic.

*sigh* I concede that you're probably 100% right on this count. It doesn't help that America's 17th VP has been pumping these stories into here nonstop because they're safe enough to post without fear of posting an unpopular opinion on them out of ignorance on the topic.

[FSTargetDrone]

I actually don't see the point of posting stories like this anymore. I suppose there's a slim chance we'll get a discussion of the impact of religion on the development of mental health systems, or somesuch thing, but what I expect will actually result will be about 50% sadistic torture revenge fantasies and 50% swipes at Muslims, Islam, Saudi Arabia, and/or Syria that are only tangentially related to the topic.

It's getting to be like the mass shootings we've seen a lot of lately, be it at a school, restaurant or a private home. How many times can we talk about guns, gun laws, etc.?

It's news, I suppose. It's just that the stories are basically the same. Someone goes nuts, does something horrible. Public is shocked. How could it happen to this community.

Only the details are variations on some twisted theme.

[FSTargetDrone]

Er, the stories of mass shooting...

[Edi]

This is no different than any fucked up act anywhere else. But if anything, it does have the redeeming quality of portraying ordinary Saudis as people who are just as horrified of this as we are. That's a change from the usual, which too often degenrates into the "they're all raghead islamofascist backward ignorant religionut demons with no humanity or redeeming qualities" bashging Red was referring to.

[Jaepheth]

This could've happened anywhere in the world. The only thing that's all that different is that if sentenced to death, the man will ironically be beheaded.

[Big Phil]

I actually don't see the point of posting stories like this anymore. I suppose there's a slim chance we'll get a discussion of the impact of religion on the development of mental health systems, or somesuch thing, but what I expect will actually result will be about 50% sadistic torture revenge fantasies and 50% swipes at Muslims, Islam, Saudi Arabia, and/or Syria that are only tangentially related to the topic.

*sigh* I concede that you're probably 100% right on this count. It doesn't help that America's 17th VP has been pumping these stories into here nonstop because they're safe enough to post without fear of posting an unpopular opinion on them out of ignorance on the topic.

This seems a uncalled for; taking swipes at him here is just childish.

If you really have an issue with what he posts you might want to call him out or take it up with a moderator.