Al-Madina

A SENIOR official from Makkah police commented on a previous article I wrote about Saudi society. I talked about the bloody street fights that occur in the country in the context of the recent fight in Al-Hamadaniya, where a man was stabbed to death in the street in clod blood. In his comment, Gen. Muhammad Al-Ghamdi said in fights where teenagers use light weapons, such as knives, the sentence should not be less than five years in prison.

In case someone died in a fight and the right to retribution was dropped by the family in lieu of blood money, then the person responsible for the death should be sentenced to 25 years in jail without any possibility for parole.

Because the lives of our children are precious and we need to stop the madness of our youth who try to prove their manhood through bloody fights knowing that someone will bail out them by paying the blood money on their behalf, I call for tougher punishments to be imposed on anyone who dare to tamper with the peace and security of our country. We should not allow these reckless youth to target innocent lives and we should put an end to such behavior.

There is no value for life in the absence of security. Our country is precious and these reckless outlaws should not think they are above the law.