Saudi Artist’s Death Sentence Follows a String of Harsh Punishments

Saudi Arabia is brutal and especially against religious dissenters as reported by the New York Times

"SANLIURFA, Turkey — For years, Ashraf Fayadh, an artist and poet, has served as an unofficial ambassador for Saudi Arabia’s small contemporary art scene, organizing shows and working to introduce Saudi art to the world.
Although Mr. Fayadh is of Palestinian origin and officially stateless, Saudi Arabia is the only home he has ever known, his friends say, and he sees art as a line of communication between Saudi society and the rest of the world.
But on Nov. 17 a Saudi court sentenced Mr. Fayadh to death on charges of apostasy based on poems he published years before and on the testimony of a few witnesses, according to Adam Coogle, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who has read the court documents.
The sentence, which can be appealed, follows a string of harsh punishments handed down by Saudi courts amid the highest recorded number of executions in the kingdom since 1995, according to human rights groups.
Notable cases have included the public flogging of a liberal blogger; a death sentence for a protester for offenses committed as a minor; and a sentence of 350 blows for a British man who was arrested with alcohol in his car. (The Briton was released this month after spending more than a year in prison, averting the threatened flogging.)
Such punishments have fueled comparisons between Saudi Arabia, a longtime ally of the United States, and the jihadists of the Islamic State, both of whom claim to rule according to Islamic Shariah law and penalize acts that are not considered crimes in much of the world.
Saudi officials stand by their allegiance to Shariah but reject any comparison with the Islamic State, saying that Saudi courts apply equal justice and noting that jihadists have repeatedly attacked their country.

The real problem is that the current rulers overtly paranoid with control and fear. Using a religion is a just a guise to prevent the masses from rising up and taking control of the government. Why we are supporting these people?
Why are sending these countries military planes when they are almost as bad as ISIS?

This is the only reason that I can find to support oil and gas development in the US because less money is flowing to these dictatorship and producing jobs instead of finding more
Seriously, that country is evil and I feel sorry for the people to have to put with this religious BS>