Rights body urges Saudi to repeal witchcraft death sentence

New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged a Saudi court to overturn a death sentence imposed on Ali Sibat, a Lebanese man convicted of practicing witchcraft. The group said that Sibat was arrested in Medina last year because of making psychic predictions on a TV channel in Beirut.

“Saudi courts are sanctioning a literal witch hunt by the religious police,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director of HRW said in a statement. “The crime of ‘witchcraft’ is being used against all sorts of behavior, with the cruel threat of state-sanctioned executions.”