Trial By Ordeal
Trial by ordeal is used by the Bedouin to decide on the gravest of crimes. Authorities to hold such trials and judge them are granted to few, and that too on a hereditary basis. The most well-known of the trials by ordeal is the bisha'a, a custom practiced among the Bedouin of Palestine and the Sinai Peninsula. It is a protocol for lie detection, and is enacted only in the harshest of civil or criminal violations, such as in a case of a blood feud, usually in the absence of witnesses. It entails the accused to lick a hot metal spoon and subsequently rinse the mouth with water. If the tongue shows signs of a burn or a scar the accused is taken to be guilty of lying.
Read more about this topic: Bedouin Systems Of Justice
Famous quotes containing the words trial by, trial and/or ordeal:
“You may talk about Free Love, if you please, but we are to have the right to vote. To-day we are fined, imprisoned, and hanged, without a jury trial by our peers. You shall not cheat us by getting us off to talk about something else. When we get the suffrage, then you may taunt us with anything you please, and we will then talk about it as long as you please.”
—Lucy Stone (1818–1893)
“Going to trial with a lawyer who considers your whole life-style a Crime in Progress is not a happy prospect.”
—Hunter S. Thompson (b. 1939)
“They who aspire to love worthily, subject themselves to an ordeal more rigid than any other.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)