Saudi Arabia stops flogging

“THE FORNICATRESS and the fornicator—flog each of them with a hundred stripes; and do not let pity for them hold you back from carrying out God’s law.” So says the Koran, which dates back to the seventh century. Prince Muhammad bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, is trying to drag the kingdom into the 21st. So on April 25th the government banned flogging as a punishment, to the relief of blasphemers, adulterers and liberals. A day later it said it would stop executing people for crimes committed when they were children.This is merely Prince Muhammad’s latest push to modernise. Since his elderly father, Salman, became king in 2015, the crown prince has curbed the morality police, allowed women to drive and lifted a ban on cinemas. The public is pleased; clerics, not so much.