Just imagine the fun of being a Muslim in Raqqa. It’s a good deal more peppery than life in Chapel Hill, according to what the Independent says.
Residents of a city besieged by Isis have described living under strict bans on alcohol and cigarettes, with anyone caught smoking publicly flogged, handed huge fines and even reportedly executed.
I dislike smoking myself, but I don’t think people should be executed for it.
Raqqa, in Syria, is one of the group’s biggest strongholds.
A leading figure with Isis’s police force was recently found in Deir-al-Zor beheaded and with a cigarette in his mouth, with the sentence “O Sheikh this is munkar (hateful and evil thing)” written on his body.
Harsh.
Isis swiftly shut down shops selling cigarettes and water pipes after Raqqa fell and banned street vendors from selling smoking materials. One man described militants bending his fingers with pliers after
being[he was] caught smoking in the street to Al Monitor.The group also released a series of statements from the so-called Isis ‘Preaching Office’ describing the health problems that made smoking “a slow suicide“.
Ah! Well no wonder they execute people for doing it then. Speeds up the suicide.