Saudi supreme court upholds jail, lashes for blogger: wife

10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes were earlier announced over insulting Islam; official says decision irrevocable


Afp June 07, 2015
A handout picture taken in 2012 in Jeddah and made available by the family on January 16, 2015 shows Saudi blogger Raef Badawi. PHOTO: AFP

DUBAI: Saudi Arabia's supreme court has upheld a sentence of 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes against blogger Raif Badawi on charges of insulting Islam, his wife said on Sunday.

The judgement came despite worldwide outrage over his case and criticism from the United Nations, United States, the European Union, Canada and others.

"This is a final decision that is irrevocable," Ensaf Haidar told AFP in a telephone interview from Canada. "This decision has shocked me."

Badawi received the first 50 of the 1,000 lashes he was sentenced to outside a mosque in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on January 9. Subsequent rounds of punishment were postponed on medical grounds.

Read: Saudi blogger lashed in public for 'insulting Islam': witnesses

His wife expressed fear that the implementation of the flogging sentence "might resume next week."

"I was optimistic that the advent of (the Muslim fasting month of) Ramadan and the arrival of a new king would bring a pardon for the prisoners of conscience, including my husband," she said.

Read: Woman gets 70 lashes for insulting Saudi man on WhatsApp

Badawi co-founded the Saudi Liberal Network Internet discussion group.

He was arrested in June 2012 under cyber-crime provisions, and a judge ordered the website shut after it criticised Saudi Arabia's notorious religious police.

COMMENTS (1)

Bairooni Haath | 8 years ago | Reply In other news 8 out of 10 Malala conspiracy accused acquitted by secret Pakistani court. Saudi Arabia in a race to the bottom vs Pakistan!
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