A blogger and father of three, Raif Badawi who was convicted of insulting Islam received 50 strokes of cane out of the 1, 000 on Friday, January 9, 2015 after the midday prayers in a public square in the port city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
A source from amongst the large crowd of eyewitnesses who pleaded anonymity said the blogger was bound on both hands and feet while he received the strokes on the back for about 15 minutes but did not cry throughout the duration of the punishment.
According to The Guardian report, Badawi was sentenced last May to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes. He had criticized Saudi Arabia’s powerful clerics on a liberal blog he founded. The blog has since been shut down. He was also ordered to pay a fine of 1m riyals or about $266,600.
The punishment was expected to serve as a deterrent to other persons who have plans in the offing to insult the religion which is dominant in the country.
Reports said he would receive 50 lashes once a week for 20 weeks although the US, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, has called on authorities to cancel the punishment.
Badawi has been held since mid-2012 after he founded the Free Saudi Liberals blog. He used it to criticise the kingdom’s influential clerics who follow a strict, conservative interpretation of Islam known as Wahhabism, which originated in Saudi Arabia.His wife and children reportedly relocated to Canada after Badawi’s conviction which was initially seven years imprisonment with 600 lashes but was increased following an appeal.
An Amnesty group referred to the flogging as a “vicious act of cruelty” and noted that Badawi’s “only ‘crime’ was to exercise his right to freedom of expression by setting up a website for public discussion.”On the same hand, the spokeswoman for the US state department Jen Psaki stated that the punishment was “inhumane.”
