Beaten Saudi Tv Presenter Flees

Rania al-Baz, a Saudi Arabian television presenter who shocked her country by publishing photographs of herself after being beaten by her husband, has left for France, apparently never to return.

"I won't go back," Ms Baz said in Paris yesterday, clearly exhausted. "At the moment I don't have anywhere to live. I will try to find work here or in London." Asked the reason for her departure, she would only say: "I was not safe any more in Saudi Arabia. Now, I must rest, remain quiet for a few days, and think about my children, who are still back in Jeddah."

She was an iconic figure in Saudi Arabia even before her husband beat her nearly to death: a young and vivacious TV face resented by the dogmatically religious establishment. But by publishing pictures of her bruised, disfigured face after she was beaten by her husband in April 2004, she shattered a wall of silence about rampant domestic violence in the kingdom. In making her stand, she told the Guardian, she had won respect, but life had been especially hard.

Reports on some Arab news websites said she had escaped aboard a goods lorry bound for Bahrain, but she would not comment. Margot Fero, a spokeswoman for her publisher, Michel Lafou, said: "She is here in France legally, but without the permission of the Saudi government. Yes, it was an escape, but she is OK. Obviously, she is worried about her children [two boys and a girl]." Ms Fero said Ms Baz would give full details next Monday.