Saudi blogger to be publicly flogged for insulting Islam

[Hypocrisy]

Saudi blogger to be publicly flogged for insulting Islam

By AYA BATRAWY
Jan. 8, 2015 2:39 PM EST

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A Saudi blogger who was sentenced last May to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes will be publicly flogged for the first time after Friday prayers outside a mosque in the Red Sea coastal city of Jiddah, a person close to his case said Thursday.

Raif Baddawi was sentenced on charges related to accusations that he insulted Islam on a liberal online forum he had created. He was also ordered by the Jiddah Criminal Court to pay a fine of 1 million Saudi riyals, or about $266,000.

Rights groups and activists say his case is part of a wider clampdown on dissent throughout the kingdom. Officials have increasingly blunted calls for reforms since the region's 2011 Arab Spring upheaval.

Badawi has been held since mid-2012, and his Free Saudi Liberals website is now closed. The case has drawn condemnation from rights groups.

He called from prison and informed his family of the flogging, due Friday, said a person close to the case. The person, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisal, said Badawi was "being used as an example for others to see."

Badawi's lawyer Waleed Abul-Khair was sentenced in July to 15 years imprisonment and barred from traveling for another 15 years after being found guilty by an anti-terrorism court of "undermining the regime and officials," ''inciting public opinion" and "insulting the judiciary."

London-based rights group Amnesty International has said that Badawi is to receive 50 lashes once a week for 20 weeks.

"It is horrifying to think that such a vicious and cruel punishment should be imposed on someone who is guilty of nothing more than daring to create a public forum for discussion and peacefully exercising the right to freedom of expression," said Philip Luther, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa director.

Badawi was originally sentenced in 2013 to seven years in prison and 600 lashes in relation to the charges, but after an appeal, the judge stiffened the punishment. Following his arrest, his wife and children left the kingdom for Canada.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. was "greatly concerned." She called the 1,000 lashes an "inhumane" response to someone exercising his right to freedom of expression and religion.

"The United States government calls on Saudi authorities to cancel this brutal punishment and to review Badawi's case and sentence," Psaki told reporters. The U.S., she said, opposes apostasy laws that restrict freedom.

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Associated Press writer Bradley Klapper contributed to this report from Washington.

 

[Citrix]

Saudi blogger sentenced to 1,000 lashes in public and 10 year’s jail for ‘insulting Islam’

Raef Badawi faces 20 weekly whippings of 50 lashes each as part of a sentence condemned by human rights groups as a 'vicious act of cruelty'

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 10 January, 2015, 3:38pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 10 January, 2015, 3:38pm

Agence France-Presse in Jeddah

Blogger Raef Badawi, who on Friday received the first 50 of 1,000 lashes he was sentenced to by a Saudi court. Photo: Screenshot

Saudi Arabia on Friday publicly flogged a blogger sentenced to 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam, with Amnesty International condemning his punishment as a “vicious act of cruelty”.

A Saudi court in September upheld a sentence of 10 years in prison as well as the flogging for Raef Badawi, who has been behind bars since June 2012.

The 30-year-old received a first instalment of 50 lashes on Friday and is expected to have 20 weekly whipping sessions until his punishment is complete.

The United States, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) have denounced the flogging as a horrific form of punishment, saying Badawi was exercising his right to freedom of expression.

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom joined the chorus of condemnation.

“Blogger Raef Badawi was flogged today in Saudi Arabia. This cruel attempt to silence modern forms of expression has to be stopped,” she said on her official Twitter account.

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom condemned the flogging as 'cruel attempt to silence modern forms of expression'. Photo: Reuters

Witnesses said that Badawi was flogged after the weekly Friday prayers near Al-Jafali mosque in the Red Sea city of Jeddah as a crowd of worshippers looked on.

He was driven to the site in a police car, and taken out of the vehicle as a government employee read out the charges against him to the crowd.

The blogger was made to stand with his back to onlookers as another man began flogging him, witnesses said, adding that Badawi did not make any sound or cry in pain.

People who had emerged from noon prayers watched in silence and were ordered by security forces not to take any pictures on their mobile phones.

London-based Amnesty International, citing witnesses, said the whole ordeal “lasted around 15 minutes” and that Badawi was shackled.

“The flogging of Raef Badawi is a vicious act of cruelty which is prohibited under international law,” said Amnesty’s Said Boumedouha, describing the blogger as a “prisoner of conscience”.

“By ignoring international calls to cancel the flogging Saudi Arabia’s authorities have demonstrated an abhorrent disregard for the most basic human rights principles.”

Rights groups have also criticised Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy, for regularly beheading convicts under its strict version of Islamic sharia law.

Members of Amnesty International hold a vigil for Badawi in Norway. Photo: Facebook

Rape, apostasy, murder, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death.

Amnesty, echoing other rights groups, said Badawi’s “only ‘crime’ was to exercise his right to freedom of expression by setting up a website for public discussion,” and demanded his unconditional release.

The US had urged its ally Saudi Arabia to cancel the “brutal” lashing of Badawi.

“We are greatly concerned about reports that human rights activist Raef Badawi will start facing the inhumane punishment of 1,000 lashes in addition to serving a 10-year sentence in prison for exercising his rights to freedom of expression and religion,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Thursday.

Media watchdog RSF said the punishment was “barbaric” and noted it came after Saudi Arabia condemned the assault on French magazine Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead.

It said Badawi, who was also ordered to pay a fine of one million riyals (HK$2 million), had “just used his freedom of expression and information”.

In February, RSF said that Gulf monarchies, fearful of unrest, had stepped up efforts to monitor and control the media, particularly online.

Saudi Arabia is on the group’s “Enemies of the internet” list.

In October three lawyers in Saudi Arabia were jailed for up to eight years and banned from using social media over tweets said to have undermined the judiciary, according to officials.

Badawi is the co-founder of the now-banned Saudi Liberal Network along with women’s rights campaigner Suad al-Shammari, who was also accused of insulting Islam and arrested last October.

Shammari has said the charges against Badawi were levelled after the Saudi Liberal Network criticised clerics and the kingdom’s notorious religious police, who have been accused of a heavy-handed enforcement of sharia law.

In July 2013, a court initially sentenced Badawi to more than seven years in jail and 600 lashes, but an appeals court overturned the ruling, sending the case back for retrial when he received a harsher sentence.

Amnesty said flogging is prohibited under international law while Reporters Without Borders slammed “Saudi Arabia’s Friday of shame”.