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U.S. | I'm a Death Row Pastor. They're Just Ordinary Folks

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In the early 1970s I was a North Carolinian, white boy from the South attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and working in East Harlem as part of a program. In my senior year, I visited men at the Bronx House of Detention. I had never been in a prison or jail, but people in East Harlem were dealing with these places and the police all the time. This experience truly turned my life around.

Syrian drug smuggler beheaded in Saudi Arabia

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Public execution in Saudi Arabia
Public execution in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia today beheaded a Syrian convicted of drug trafficking, official media said, bringing to 68 the number of people executed this year despite international concern.

"Talal Ali Qassem was captured smuggling a large quantity of methamphetamine. Investigations led to his confession," the official Saudi Press Agency reported, citing the interior ministry.

Qassem was executed in the northern region of Jawf.

The ministry says the government is battling narcotics "because of their great harm to individuals and society."

In September, an independent expert working on behalf of the United Nations called for an immediate moratorium on the death penalty in Saudi Arabia.

Christof Heyns said that among his concerns was the obtaining of confessions under torture.

Rape, murder, apostasy, homosexuality and armed robbery are also punishable by death under the kingdom's strict version of Islamic sharia law.

Source: Agence France-Presse, November 19, 2014
Location: Saudi Arabia
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