Saudi Cleric Says 'Depraved' TV Moguls May Be Killed

A senior Saudi cleric has issued a religious decree saying the owners of television networks broadcasting "depravation and debauchery" may be killed, Al-Arabiya television reported on Friday. "The owners of these channels propagate depravation and debauchery," said Saleh al-Luhaidan, chief justice of the supreme judicial council, the highest judicial authority in the ultra-conservative Saudi kingdom. He made the remarks on radio in response to a caller who asked him to give an opinion on what he said were "immoral" programmes on Arab television during the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, a source at Al-Arabiya said. "It is lawful to kill ... the apostles of depravation... if their evil cannot be easily removed through simple sanctions," Luhaidan said, according to excerpt of the remarks broadcast on the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya. The situation is "serious ... the degradation of morals is a form of perversion on earth," he added. Saleh al-LuhaidanDuring Ramadan, when Muslims must fast from dawn to dusk, Arab satellite televisions broadcast lavish productions, including soap operas and mini-series, some with historical and religious themes, as well as game shows. A popular soap that was broadcast by Al-Arabiya for several weeks preceding Ramadan already stirred passions in Saudi Arabia, where the grand mufti branded it "subversive" and "anti-Islamic." Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, head of Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority, earlier this year issued a fatwa against "Noor" and decreed that any channel broadcasting the series is "an enemy of God and his Prophet." The Turkish-made soap opera dubbed into Arabic tells the story of Mohannad and his equally stunning wife Noor as they wrestle to reconcile the conflicting pressures of traditional and modern worlds. Al-Arabiya is a news channel based in Dubai and part of the Saudi group MBC.