Flogging in Syria
Flogging in SyriaScreenshot

The rebellion against Syrian strongman Bashar Assad is turning increasingly Islamist in nature, seeing as the rebel forces are largely affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and salafist Islam.

Videos streaming in daily from Syria document this Islamist influence, which comes in the form of executions and torture carried out in the name of Islam, among other things.

The embedded video, from Saraqeb in the Idlib province of northwestern Syria, shows the carrying out of sentences handed down by a rebel sharia field court.

Hundreds of local residents gathered to hear the sentence being pronounced by a rebel. Two residents were found guilty of offenses against sharia and sentenced to 40-50 lashes each.

The elder man was convicted of having his daughter, who had divorced her first husband, married to a second man during the "cooling off" period of three months required by sharia law. He did this ten days before the 3-month period had ended and was sentenced to 50 lashes.