Savage & Stone Age Saudi Supreme Court Upholds Jail, Lashes for Blogger/المحكمة السعودية العليا البربرية والظالمة تؤيد السجن والجلد بحق المدون رائف بدوي
Saudi Supreme Court Upholds Jail, Lashes for Blogger
Naharnet/07.06.15
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 judgment 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. Amnesty International slammed the “abhorrent” decision to uphold a “cruel and unjust sentence,” describing it as a “dark day for freedom of expression.”
“Blogging is not a crime and Raif Badawi is being punished merely for daring to exercise his right to freedom of expression,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa director. Badawi’s 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.
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 criticized Saudi Arabia’s notorious religious police. The co-founder of the online venue, Suad al-Shammari, was released from jail in February. But Badawi’s lawyer, Walid Abulkhair, who is also a rights activist, remain behind bars. Badawi and Abulkhair have been nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize by Norwegian member of parliament Karin Andersen.
His supporters have launched a campaign on Twitter using the hashtag #backlash that has gathered momentum, and posted pictures of people with lashes drawn on their backs with red lipstick. Saudi Arabia in early March dismissed criticism of its flogging of Badawi and “strongly denounced the media campaign around the case.” In his first letter from prison published by the German weekly Der Spiegel in March, Badawi wrote how he “miraculously survived 50 lashes.”
Badawi, 31, recalled that he was “surrounded by a cheering crowd who cried incessantly ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is greatest)” during the whipping.
“All this cruel suffering happened to me because I expressed my opinion,” Badawi wrote. Badawi’s wife and their three children have received asylum in Quebec, in Canada. Quebec’s Immigration Minister Kathleen Weil said in March that her government would “continue its defense of Mr. Badawi,” saying this was a “clear case of human rights violation.”Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Canada, Naif Bin Bandir al-Sudairy, complained officially.
المحكمة السعودية العليا تؤيد السجن والجلد بحق المدون رائف بدوي (زوجته)
نهارنت/07 حزيران/15/أيدت المحكمة السعودية العليا حكم السجن عشر سنوات والجلد الف مرة للمدون رائف بدوي المسجون بتهمة “الاساءة للاسلام”، بحسب ما اعلنت زوجته الاحد لوكالة فرانس برس. وقالت انصاف حيدر عبر الهاتف من كندا “لقد اكدت المحكمة العليا الحكم بالسجن عشر سنوات اضافة الى عشر سنوات اضافية من منع السفر والجلد الف جلدة بحق رائف”. واضافت حيدر “للاسف صدمني هذا القرار، خصوصا اننا كنا متفائلين انه مع اقتراب رمضان وفي ظل حكم الملك الجديد (سلمان)، وكنا نتأمل ان يتم العفو عن سجناء الرأي وبينهم زوجي”.وتعيش حيدر في كندا. والاحد، انتقدت منظمة العفو الدولية قرار المحكمة السعودية العليا، وقال فيليب لوثر مدير فرع المنظمة في الشرق الاوسط وشمال افريقيا “من المشين ابقاء هذا الحكم الوحشي والظالم”. واعتبر انه برفضها العودة عن هذا الحكم فان السلطات السعودية “اظهرت ازدراء بالعدالة وبالاف الاصوات التي طالبت بالافراج الفوري وغير المشروط (عن بدوي) في مختلف انحاء العالم”. واعتقل بدوي (31 عاما) في 17 حزيران 2012 وحكم عليه في ايار 2014 بالسجن عشر سنوات وغرامة مليون ريال (267 الف دولار) والف جلدة موزعة على 20 اسبوعا. ونفذ الحكم باول خمسين جلدة امام مسجد الجفالي في جدة في التاسع من كانون الثاني. ولم يتم تنفيذ اي عمليات جلد منذ الجولة الاولى. واثارت هذه القضية استياء في العالم ووصفت الامم المتحدة الحكم بانه “وحشي وغير انساني”. وبدوي مؤسس “الشبكة الليبرالية السعودية الحرة” مع الناشطة سعاد الشمري، وحائز جائزة جمعية “مراسلون بلا حدود” للعام 2014 عن حرية التعبير. وقد اغلقت السلطات الموقع.
