The Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the Hai'a) in Qassim said Wednesday that they had “thwarted the effects of a magic spell” that had been “attached to the neck of a pigeon”. Hai'a spokesman Abdullah Al-Mansour said that a family had been spending the day at an istiraha rest house to the west of Buraidah when a pigeon appeared with a “strange bundle” wrapped in plastic around its neck. “The father of the family took the pigeon to the local Hai'a office and it was given to the Anti-Magic Unit in Qassim,” Al-Mansour said. “Khalid Al-Yahya, the official at the unit, examined the bundle and confirmed that it was indeed a magic spell placed by an unknown person, and the spell was nullified there and then.”
