The story of Raif Badawi, a Saudi Arabian blogger who is currently imprisoned in Saudi Arabia on charges of insulting Islam and breaking the country’s Internet rules, has been drawing widespread, international attention due to the extreme nature of the punishment for his alleged crimes: 10 years in prison, 1,000 lashes, and $267,000.
Badawi was arrested in 2012 and charged with the accusations after writing an article in the blog, “Free Saudi Liberals,” criticizing Saudi clerics and sparking debate about religion and politics. He received his first 50 lashes two weeks ago, and was scheduled to receive his next set of lashes the following Friday, the latter which was postponed twice due to medical assessments that deemed that his wounds from the previous flogging have not yet been completely healed.
“The notion that Raif Badawi must be allowed to heal so that he can suffer this cruel punishment again and again is macabre and outrageous,” said Said Boumedouha, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa program. “Flogging should not be carried out under any circumstances. Flogging is prohibited under international law along with other forms of corporal punishment.”
“It’s a de facto death sentence,” Philip Hall, 55, told the Guardian. “The human body cannot withstand it.”
Academics, leaders, and activists from various faiths and cultural backgrounds have come together calling on the Saudi government to release Badawi—or allow them to receive lashes instead.
“Compassion, a virtue honored in Islam as well as in Christianity, Judaism, and other faiths, is defined as ‘suffering with one another.’ We are persons of different faiths, yet we are united in a sense of obligation to condemn and resist injustice and to suffer with its victims, if need be,” the letter written by the group states.
“We therefore make the following request. If your government will not remit the punishment of Raif Badawi, we respectfully ask that you permit each of us to take 100 of the lashes that would be given to him.”
The group of advocates includes seven members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF): Katrina Lantos Swett, the Chair of USCIRF; Robert P. George, a McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence in Princeton University; M. Zuhdi Jasser, the president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy; Mary Ann Glendon, a member of the board of the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty; and Hannah Rosenthal, the CEO of the Milawaukee Jewish Federation.
Though leaders internationally—including the United Nations and the U.S. government—have called on the Saudi government for Badawi’s release, there are no confirmed reports of progress as of yet.
