Next to Afghanistan, no country imposes tougher Islamic laws than Saudi Arabia. The resort to beheading, hand-chopping and whipping fuels tabloid gore and human-rights outrage. Yet, cruel as the system often is, the deeper trouble may lie less with the letter of the law than with the obtuse, opaque and clumsy ways it is applied. Inefficiency, not excess, is what is now prompting belated efforts at reform.
展开▼
