Saudi blogger and activist Raif Badawi (38) was released from prison on Friday after ten years. His wife and daughter announced this on Friday from Canada. Since he was jailed, human rights groups and governments have regularly called attention to Badawi’s detention and demanded his release.
In 2012, Badawi was arrested in Saudi Arabia for “insulting Islam”, criticizing clerics and the government, and several other crimes. He had argued in blogs, among other things, for more freedom of expression, a separation between church and state and liberalism in strict Sunni Saudi Arabia. In 2014 he was sentenced to ten years in prison, a thousand strokes of the cane and a fine of the equivalent of 190,000 euros. He had served his prison term on February 28.
Also read: Raif Badawi had a blog and gets a thousand lashes for it
In the end Badawi received ‘only’ fifty lashes. That happened in 2015 in Jeddah in front of hundreds of spectators, while Badawi’s hands and feet were tied.
travel ban
Badawi will not be allowed to leave the country for the next ten years, which means that he will not be able to visit his wife and three children in Canada. He also has “a media ban”. His lawyer spoke to Reuters news agency of “a prison without walls” that Badawi now faces.
Badawi has been named several times as a contender for the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2015, he won the Sakharov Prize, the highest EU human rights award.
Also read: Saudi Arabia tolerates no contradiction
In 2018, his sister and women’s rights activist Samar Badawi was also arrested in Saudi Arabia. When the Canadian foreign minister criticized this, Canadian ambassador Riad was expelled. Samar Badawi was released in 2021 after serving her prison sentence.