Tom Stacey

Witness to a stoning

A tipper truck dumped heaps of red sandstone for those without sin to fling at the women under their shrouds

[Getty Images/Shutterstock/iStock/Alamy]

Attending public executions, whether beheadings or stonings, is not my predilection, yet one does come across them in the course of life in Arabia and Pakistan. Beheading and stoning are the accepted penalties for a range of presumed offences in much of the Muslim world, and the all-male crowd — especially the old men — push and shove outside Riyadh’s main mosque after Friday morning prayer for a better view of offenders losing their heads by the ceremonial sword.

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