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Saudi blogger Raif Badawi honoured by the International Publishers Association for his contribution to freedom of speech
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11th April 2016
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| See article from theguardian.com
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Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who fell victim to the country's brutal and repressive legal system, has been awarded the International Publishers Association's Prix Voltaire for his contribution to freedom of speech. Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in
prison and 1,000 lashes for publishing a liberal and atheistic blog. He was arrested in 2012 on a charge of insulting Islam and indicted on several charges including apostasy. He was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes in
2013, and then re-sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison plus a fine in 2014. The sentence was upheld by the Saudi supreme court in June. In December, it was reported that Badawi had gone on hunger strike. His wife Ensar Haider Mohammed,
who is travelling to London to collect the award on Badawi's behalf, has called on the world's writers to continue applying pressure of regimes that do not tolerate free speech. S he told the Guardian: Raif has
become a symbol for the fight for freedom of expression and the right to publish ideas in writing. My husband once wrote that freedom of expression is the 'air that any thinker breathes and the fuel that ignites the fire of his or her ideas', and he was
right. This is why he is wasting away in jail today, and precisely why the world's free writers should use their freedom of expression as a weapon in the war on oppression.
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But Saudi attempts to block the criticism by a UN human rights group
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27th June 2014
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| See article from
middleeasteye.net |
Saudi Arabia repeatedly interrupted an American NGO at an extraordinary meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, as the organisation read out a statement criticising their imprisoning of a man on charges of atheism and running a liberal online forum. The Center for Inquiry, a US non-profit advocating secular and humanist values, was stopped from speaking on three occasions by the delegation from Saudi Arabia who protested against their raising of specific incidents of human rights abuse.
The case raised was that of Raif Badawi, co-founder of the Saudi Arabian Free Liberals website, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison, 1,000 lashes and a $266,000 fine in May. He was convicted of violating Islamic values and slurring Saudi
Arabia's religious symbols, which drew the ire of Amnesty International who described the ruling as outrageous . The Center criticised Badawi's conviction at the Council, saying Mr Badawi is a prisoner of conscience who is guilty of
nothing more than daring to create a public forum for discussion and peacefully exercising the right to freedom of expression, which prompted the Saudi delegation to interrupt the statement. We believe that what is being said by this
organisation is completely outside of the mandate of this report, said a Saudi delegate, adding we request that they stop their intervention. Four member states, including the United States, then responded to the intervention,
supporting the right of NGOs to raise specific human rights cases during Council sessions. This allowed the Center for Inquiry's spokesperson to continue speaking and call for Badawi's conviction to be quashed. We call on Saudi Arabia, as a
newly elected member of this council, to release Raif Badawi immediately and unconditionally, and drop any pending charges against him and others for 'blasphemy', 'insulting Islam', or 'apostasy', the spokesperson said. As an elected member of
this Council, Saudi Arabia is obliged to 'uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights' and 'fully cooperate with the Council', they added. |
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Government Steps Up Efforts to Silence Saudis Empowered by New Media
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| 18th
December 2013
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| See article from
hrw.org See Report: Challenging the Red Lines [pdf] from
hrw.org |
Activists in Saudi Arabia face a repressive and intolerant government as they advocate popular political participation, judicial reform, and an end to discrimination against women and minorities, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
Authorities have responded by arresting, prosecuting, and attempting to silence rights defenders and to quash their calls for change. The 48-page report, Challenging the Red Lines: Stories of Rights Activists in Saudi Arabia,
presents the stories of 11 prominent Saudi social and political rights activists and their struggles to resist government efforts to suppress them. The activists have used new media, including news websites and blogs, and social media tools such as
Twitter and Facebook, to build relationships with one another, discuss ideas and strategies for change, and develop public platforms to disseminate their reform message. Saudi activists are using new media to take their
government to task for rampant rights abuses, said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. The Saudi authorities think they can use intimidation and prison terms to stop the criticism, but the activists are finding ways to
voice their concerns until they are heard.
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Man gets 4 years in prison and 300 lashes for calling for democracy in Saudi
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| 17th December
2013
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| See article from
dailymail.co.uk |
A Saudi judge has sentenced a political activist to 300 lashes and four years in prison for calling for a constitutional monarchy in Saudi Arabia, his rights group said. Omar al-Saeed is the fourth member of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights
Association (ACPRA) to be jailed this year after the group issued statements attacking the ruling family over its human rights record and calling for democracy. Saeed, who has also been issued with a worldwide travel ban for his so-called
transgressions, did not have legal representation at the secret hearing when he was sentenced, ACPRA said in a statement on its website. And he has issued a scathing attack on the ruling elite who exacted the medieval punishment:
I am the proud prisoner Omar Mohammed al-Saed. I read out to you the motives and causes of my imprisonment: my hatred of injustice, the fabrication of pain and misery, taking advantage of passive attitudes, treating them as if they
were fools, and denying them their livelihoods for brutal personal ambition. This unjust sentence is an honour and pride to Omar al-Saed and a disgrace and shame to Judge Issa al-Matrudi. |
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Charges against webmaster of religious discussion website elevated to apostasy
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| 23rd
December 2012
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| See article from
hrw.org
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Saudi authorities should immediately drop all charges against the detained editor of a website created to foster debate about religion and religious figures in Saudi Arabia. On December 17, 2012, the Jeddah District Court, which had been hearing
the case against the editor, Raif Badawi, referred it to a higher court on a charge of apostasy, which carries the death penalty. The charges against him, based solely to Badawi's involvement in setting up a website for peaceful discussion about religion
and religious figures, violate his right to freedom of expression. Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch said: Badawi's life hangs in the balance because he set up a liberal website
that provided a platform for an open and peaceful discussion about religion and religious figures. Saudi Arabia needs to stop treating peaceful debate as a capital offense.
A member of Badawi's family told Human Rights Watch that
during the December 17 hearing, Judge Muhammad al-Marsoom prevented Badawi's lawyer from representing his client in court and demanded that Badawi repent to God. The judge informed Badawi that he could face the death penalty if he did not repent
and renounce his liberal beliefs, the family member said. Badawi refused, leading Judge al-Marsoom to refer the case to the Public Court of Jeddah, recommending that it try Badawi for apostasy. Prior to the December 17 hearing, Badawi had
been charged with insulting Islam through electronic channels and going beyond the realm of obedience, neither of which carries the death penalty. A different judge presided over five sessions of the trial but was replaced without
explanation for the December 17 hearing by Judge al-Marsoom. Security forces arrested Badawi, a 30-year-old from the port city of Jeddah, on June 17. Badawi in 2008 was co-founder of the Free Saudi Liberals website, an online platform for debating
religious and political matters in Saudi Arabia. Update: Jailed for 7 years and 600 lashes 30th July 2013. See
article from france24.com A Saudi
court sentenced Raef Badawi to seven years in jail and 600 lashes for setting up a "liberal" network and alleged insults to Islam, activists said. A judge had referred Badawi in December to a higher court for alleged apostasy, a
charge that could lead to the death penalty in the ultra-conservative kingdom. But thankfully the charge of apostasy was dropped. Update: Jailed for 10 years and 1000 lashes 11th May 2014. See
article from theguardian.com A court in
Saudi Arabia has sentenced the editor of an internet forum he founded to discuss the role of religion in the country to 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes, according to reports in the Saudi media. Raif Badawi, who started the Free Saudi Liberals
website, was originally sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes in July last year, but an appeals court overturned the sentence and ordered a retrial. Apart from imposing a stiffer sentence on Badawi in his retrial, the judge at the
criminal court in Jeddah also fined him 1m riyals. Badawi's website has been closed since his first trial. His lawyers said the sentence was too harsh, although the prosecutor had demanded a harsher penalty, the news website Sabq reported. The
ruling is subject to appeal.
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9th April 2008 | | |
Saudi blocks website campaigning for freedom of imprisoned blogger
| See
full article from Global Voices
See also Freefouad
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The blog of the detained Saudi blogger Fouad Alfarhan has been blocked today in Saudi Arabia, along with Freefouad
website dedicated to Alfarhan's case and the pro-reformist blog Freedoms . Users trying to access these blogs from Saudi Arabia were met with a notice saying “Blocked URL. Dear User, Sorry, the requested page is unavailable.
115 days after his arrest, on 10 December 2007, Fouad Alfarhan remains jailed for unspecified violation of non-security regulations.
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1st January 2008 | |
| Blogger did, so he has become one
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From CPJ see full
article
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The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the ongoing detention of a leading pro-reform Saudi blogger who has been held without charge since early December.
On December 10, Fouad Ahmed al-Farhan, a blogger who runs the site Alfarhan,
was detained by Saudi security agents at the Jeddah office of the IT company he owns. Security agents later visited al-Farhan’s home and confiscated his laptop.
In an e-mail sent to friends prior to his arrest, al-Farhan explained that he had
received a phone call from the Saudi interior ministry instructing him to prepare himself to be picked up in the coming two weeks for an investigation by a high-ranking official.
The issue that caused all of this is because I wrote
about the political prisoners here in Saudi Arabia and they think I’m running an online campaign promoting their issue, al-Farhan wrote in the e-mail, which is currently posted on his blog. He wrote that the agent promised to detain him for only a
short period if he agreed to sign a letter of apology. I am not sure if I am ready to do that. Apology for what? he asked in the e-mail, adding that he does not want to be forgotten in jail.
Al-Farhan is one of the few Saudi
bloggers who does not use a penname while commenting on political and social life in the country. In one of his last posts before his detention, al-Farhan sharply criticized 10 influential business, religious, and media figures close to the Saudi royal
family. His public support of a group of 10 Saudi academics arrested earlier this year allegedly for “financing terrorism” has apparently angered Saudi authorities, he reported on his blog.
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