Major English language media are now reporting the horrendous news about the new and even more barbaric sentence imposed on Raif Badawi.
A Saudi court has imprisoned blogger Raif Badawi for 10 years for “insulting Islam” and setting up a liberal web forum, local media report.
He was also sentenced to 1,000 lashes and ordered to pay a fine of 1 million riyals ($266,000; £133,000).
I would put the 1000 lashes first.
Mr Badawi, the co-founder of a website called the Liberal Saudi Network, was arrested in 2012.
A Saudi newspaper close to the government reported that he had lost his appeal against an earlier, more lenient sentence of seven years and three months in jail and 600 lashes.
Makes the blood run cold, doesn’t it, when a sentence of seven years and three months in jail and 600 lashes for atheist opinion and a liberal web forum is called “more lenient”?
Amnesty International describes him as a “prisoner of conscience” and has called for his release.
“Raif Badawi is the latest victim to fall prey to the ruthless campaign to silence peaceful activists in Saudi Arabia,” it said in a statement.
Last October a Saudi journalist was freed after spending a year and a half in prison for writing insulting tweets about the Prophet Muhammad.
Hamza Kashgari fled Saudi Arabia for Malaysia in 2012 but was extradited just days later. He was released last year after making a public apology.
Way to make everyone love Islam, Saudi Arabia – keep telling the world that refusal to love Islam gets you fined and imprisoned and whipped ONE THOUSAND TIMES. Yes that should work well.
It seems likely that 1000 lashes could easily turn into a death sentence. Lots of people aren’t able to survive that.
Indeed. The lashes are given in installments (oh how humane! how merciful! what a good thing Allah is merciful!), but the cumulative effect is not what you’d call beneficial to health.
Lenient indeed, by Norwegian standards.
Mike.
/sarc
Those crafty Norwegians would make him watch 1K episodes of the Swedish Chef, instead. Would that really be more merciful than whipping him to death (or, at least, to an early grave)?
Considering the latest decision by the SCOTUS, the Christian fundies in the US are taking notes from the Saudis so they’ll be ready to institute the same asap.
Of all the world’s religions, Islam has to take the booby prize. It stands supreme as the most hateful and barbaric of the whole lot of them.
In English-speaking countries, before the drop gallows was introduced, being sentenced to be ‘hung by the neck until you are dead’ meant to be killed by strangulation, however long it took.
This Saudi court has taken the art of the slow judicial death to a whole new level.
.
http://www.answering-islam.org/Hoaxes/salamislam.html
Considering the latest decision by the SCOTUS, the Christian fundies in the US are taking notes from the Saudis so they’ll be ready to institute the same asap.
Yes Christians whip atheists all the time.
And I’m sure Mr badawi will draw great comfort from that “fact”as the…idunno…689th lash hits his back.
How can you be so dismissive of his plight?
Not very aware of the history of Christianity are you Decker?
Or the present version in some places where ‘witches’ are routinely tortured & executed. Assuming, of course, they aren’t killed while being ‘exorcized’.