Hopes are High for Release of Saudi Arabia Blogger Raif Badawi

Update: March 7, 2022: There is no word on the release of Raif Badawi, even though he has served his sentence in Saudi Arabia. Amnesty urges release of blogger after sentence expires Middle East Eye

As Vladimir Putin launches an unprovoked assault on Ukraine — stunning global citizens who see Putin as a malevolent war criminal gone wild in his barbarity against the totally innocent people of Ukraine — there is hope that Saudi blogger Raif Badawi might be released.

Badawi was arrested in 2012 on accusations of insulting Islamic religious figures on his blog Free Saudi Liberals. In a 2014 court decision that stunned human-rights activists as unjust, Mr. Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The further sentence of 1,000 lashes for blasphemy — a sentence that would absolutely kill him — created gasps of horror worldwide, including on Anne of Carversville. The author was also fined $266,000.

Badawi received the first 50 lashes in April 2015 — which did nearly kill him — and was not subjected to further flogging scheduled in June of 2015, as his body hadn’t healed. In April 2020, Saudi Arabia bowed to international pressure and abolished flogging. The result was the cancellation of the remaining 950 lashes of Raif Badawi’s sentence.

Hopes are high that Raif Badawi may be released from jail in days. Badawi has spent almost ten years in prison, and often total isolation. The dissident was sentenced using the Islamic — or hijri — calendar. By that calendar's reckoning, on Rajab 26 1443, he will have spent 10 years in jail. The actual date on the Georgian calendar is February 28.

Human rights group Amnesty International has campaigned for Badawi’s release for years, along with other organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders. Amnesty International believes that the release could be imminent.

As Saudi Women Activists Suffer Horrific Torture, Kingdom Puts Women In Cockpits + Main Cabin

YASMINE AL-MAYMANY IS AMONG THE CERTIFIED SAUDI WOMEN PILOTS WHO TOLD ALARABIA IN AUGUST 2018 THAT SHE HOPED TO SOON BE IN THE COCKPIT WITH A JOB SANCTIONED BY THE SAUDI GENERAL AUTHORITY OF CIVIL AVIATION.

As Saudi Women Activists Suffer Horrific Torture, Kingdom Puts Women In Cockpits + Main Cabin

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is promising to not only put women in the cockpit as co-pilots but to train them as flight attendants as well. In January, 2018 Eqbal Darandari, a member of the Saudi Shura Council, called on national airlines to empower women by creating jobs. “We’ve seen Saudi women piloting aircraft outside the kingdom. Now it’s time for [Saudi Arabia’s aviation authority] to take the initiative. Saudi women deserve to find work in their own country,” he said at the time. 

The magazine’s website writes that Flynas will also hire women as co-pilots. “The move aims to enable Saudi women to have a greater role in supporting the Kingdom’s economy,” stated Bander Al-Mohanna, CEO of Flynas.

This is good news for Saudi women, but what about the important voices of resistance in Saudi Arabia?

Those arrested included Loujain Alhathloul, a leading figure in the movement to lift the driving ban; and Samar Badawi, an internationally recognized campaigner against Saudi Arabia’s discriminatory male guardianship system, under which women require the permission of a male relative to travel, marry, or work in certain jobs.

Samar is the sister of liberal blogger Raif Badawi, who in 2015 was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for his writings and languishes in a Saudi prison.

After Paris Murders In Name of Islam, Saudi Arabia Launches 1000 Lashes Friday January 9, 2015 For Blogger Who Insulted Islam

Saudi Blogger To Be Publicly Flogged For Insulting Islam NPR

A Saudi blogger will be flogged 50 lashes tomorrow, the first of 20 public floggings for insulting Islam. In all, 1000 lashes will be administered to Raif Badawi, increased from 600 lashes during the appeal process. The blogger Badawi was found guilty of insulting Islam on his website Free Saudi Liberals and was also fined about $266,000 and 10 years in prison for his crime.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. was greatly concerned at Badawi’s punishment “for exercising his rights 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,” she said.

Amnesty International said it too had learned of Badawi’s impending punishment.

“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,” Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa director for the group, said in a statement.

Badawi’s wife and children moved to Canada after he was arrested and his website has been closed.

Saudi blogger Raif Badawi.

Anne of Carversville has a long history of supporting women’s rights in America and internationally.

We have never involved ourselves in the case of a man before, but coming on the heels of the assassinations in Paris this week in the name of Islam, we must speak up for another blogger Raif Badawi.

AOC has worked to end the flogging of 40,000 women a year in Sudan for perceived indecent exposure. This is what a flogging of a woman in Sudan looks like. Women in Saudi Arabia are also lashed for an offense like an ankle showing.

Although there is no mention of burqas or their equivalent in the Quran, the most orthodox, fundamentalist, murderous branches of Islam say that an ankle showing warrants this punishment for offending Islam.

I am just convulsing over the thought of the punishments that await Raif Badawi for trying to moderate the tribal-mentality, Saudi Arabian government in the 21st century. There is a petition at Amnesty International for readers and friends wanting to stop this brutal punishment coming on the heels of the Paris murders in the name of Islam.

Laughing Brutality in Woman’s Flogging Video Chills Sudan The files of this video were transferred to Anne, after You Tube continually took it down for violating its restrictions on violence. It was the government in Khartoum that demanded that it be taken down. We posted the files on AOC and social media, but also transferred the files to a contact at Bloomberg News.

Flogging of Sudanese women in Khartoum from Anne Enke on Vimeo.

Update

The first public lashing of Raif Badawi was carried out today. The Saudi video was horrific — much worse than this video out of Sudan, which is also just heart breaking to watch. And then men laughed at this poor woman.