Saudi Arabian Journalist May Die Today While Receiving 50 Lashes for Criticizing Gov’t
(ANTIMEDIA) Last weekend, the Saudi Arabian Supreme Court upheld the conviction of blogger Raif Badawi—and consequently may have sealed his fate. Sentenced to 1,000 lashes and ten years in prison for what would be considered only mild political and religious criticism elsewhere, the extreme nature of his punishment could be akin to a death sentence—the first set of 50 lashes in January left his body so wounded, doctors ruled he was unfit to receive more. On Friday, they begin again.
Badawi’s wife, Ensaf Haidar, fears he will not survive this next round. She lives in Québec with their children, where they’ve been since being granted refugee status by the Canadian government in 2013.
Badawi’s sentence stems from Free Saudi Liberals, the blog he founded in 2008 to provide an open forum for political and social debate. But the blog immediately caught the eye of the oppressive government and when he failed to remove the so-called “offensive content”—including an article lampooning the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (Saudi Arabia’s religious, morality police)—the government charged him with abandoning Islam, or apostasy, which is punishable by death.
Haidar says that simply isn’t true—her husband only wanted to promote tolerance in a country that sorely lacks precisely that. Badawi is not permitted under the law to appeal his conviction.
