A Sri Lankan woman has been arrested on suspicion of casting a spell on a 13-year-old girl in Saudi Arabia — and faces beheading if convicted of witchcraft

“The punishment is always beheading for anyone found guilty of witchcraft,” Waleed Abu al-Khair, a Saudi lawyer and human rights activist, said. The girl’s father said that she began acting strangely after coming across the Sri Lankan woman in a shopping mall in Jeddah. He reportedly alerted security and asked for the woman’s arrest. Amnesty International in December 2011 condemned the beheading of another woman who was convicted on charges of sorcery and witchcraft in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government often uses sorcery charges as a cover-up to punish people for exercising freedom of speech.