Recently in Saudi Arabia Category

Mazrak refugee camp in the tough mountainous scrublands of Yemen's north-west border with Saudi Arabia is now home to more than 10,000 people displaced by the escalating war between the government and rebels from the Huthi clan. A man displaced by the war between Huthi rebels and government forces walks with his camel through a refugee camp at Mazrak, north-west Yemen. Photo: Hugh Macleod / IRIN

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ONLY the mercy of King of Saudi Arabia can now save the life of a former television presenter for a Lebanese satellite TV station, who gave advice and predictions about the future and whose death sentence for "sorcery" was upheld by a court last week.

Its a heartbreaking tale, awful to relate and when the sword falls on the neck of Ali Hussain Sibat, as the court has ordered, it will add to the kingdom's reputation for capricious justice.

A journalist was at Sibat's home when his small daughter Jamal returned from from school and climbed onto the sofa beside him in her plaited hair and said - unprompted by any of her family - "Are you going to bring my Daddy home?"