The Saudi journalist who could be killed for a tweet

Hamza Kashgari opted for the wrong stopover; hell, it happens. I don’t know what the flight options are for Riyadh to Wellington but if I’d been in ­Hamza’s shoes I’d have tried to ensure the plane didn’t touch down in Kuala Lumpur, of all places. A non-stop flight would have been much better — but then I suppose it would have been more expensive. I made the mistake, on a long-haul trip, of choosing an airline that stopped in Dubai, just to save a few quid on the fare. The Emiratis confiscated all my alcohol. The ramifications for Kashgari are more acute — he is likely to be ­murdered.

He fled Saudi Arabia because of a number of ‘tweets’ he had made concerning the prophet Mohammed, PBUH etc etc. I have a horrible feeling that the world will end with an injudicious tweet, seeing how people react to them. It is bad enough in this country — a moronic inferno of bitterness and spite, desperate to be transgressed and to gain vengeance for having been transgressed — so you can imagine what it’s like in Saudi Arabia, especially when it’s good ol’ Mohammed who has been supposedly ­transgressed.