A Saudi blogger who was sentenced last May to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes will be publicly flogged for the first time after Friday prayers outside a mosque in the Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah, according to a person close to his case.
Raif Badawi was sentenced on charges related to accusations that he insulted Islam on a liberal online forum he had created. He was also ordered by the Jeddah criminal court to pay a fine of 1m Saudi riyals, or about $266,000.
Rights groups and activists say his case is part of a wider clampdown on dissent throughout the kingdom. Officials have increasingly blunted calls for reforms since the region’s 2011 Arab Spring upheaval.
[TOP RATED COMMENT] Good job he didn't do something REALLY serious, like draw a cartoon of some long-dead preacher
[ANOTHER] This is an ISIS government in action but they also do brisk business with the "free world" which makes them "moderate". There is no regime in the world more barbaric than that of Saudi Arabia!
[ANOTHER] Where are all the Guardian journalists to tell us this 'isn't about Islam' and that it's no reason to be concerned at all about the lovely religion of peace?
[ANOTHER] Can't we just have a section named "The Daily Islamic Atrocity". At least we could then keep all this stuff in one place. After all, there is a hell of a lot of it.
[ANOTHER] A question for the politicians and commentators who have told us that the Hebdo killers do not represent Islam.
Does this flogging by the Saudis represent Islam? [The Guardian] Read more
