Raif Badawi, a Saudi blogger and activist who is the creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals, has been sentenced to ten years in prison for the charge of "insulting Islam."Badawi had called for May 7th to be a "day for Saudi Liberals." The day, intended to bring attention to Saudi Arabia's strict religious policies, was promoted on his website. In addition to the decade in prison for the charge, Badawi will undergo physical and monetary punishment procedures. The blogger has been sentenced to 1,000 lashes and a 1 million riyal ($267,000) fine.
He was originally arrested for "insulting Islam" on June 17, 2012. Last year, he was cleared of apostasy charges. Renouncing Islam is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia, based upon the Quranic principles of the Islamic shariah law.
Badawi, 31, has a long history of run-ins with the Shariah-compliant legal system. In 2008, he was arrested on apostasy charges, but he was released a day later. In 2009, Saudi officials banned him from leaving the country and froze his bank accounts.
Concerning his current sentence, Badawi's wife said, "This is terrible news and I'm absolutely shocked and devastated by it. How is it possible they could take a sentence that was already so harsh and make it even harsher? Ten years in jail and 1,000 lashes? That's unimaginable. I'm extremely scared for my husband."
After the first 100 lashes they will be administering lashes to a corpse.
| Surely they do X lashes per day every Y days. To give the lasher time to recover between sets. |