{"id":19512,"date":"2013-12-29T12:41:11","date_gmt":"2013-12-29T19:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=19512"},"modified":"2013-12-29T12:41:11","modified_gmt":"2013-12-29T19:41:11","slug":"saudi-blogger-raif-badawi-jailed-for-resistance-to-regime-on-charges-punishable-by-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=19512","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Blogger Raif Badawi jailed for resistance to Regime on charges punishable by death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Saudi blogger jailed for \u2018insulting Islam\u2019 faces a new trial for apostasy, which is punishable by death<\/strong>ath<br \/>\nBy Barry Duke &#8211; 27 December, 2013<\/p>\n<p>SAUDI blogger and activist, Raif Badawi, currently serving a 7-year prison term for \u2018insulting Islam\u2019, may soon appear in a higher court on graver charges of apostasy. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to death. free The activist\u2019s wife, Ensaf Haidar, revealed in this report that a judge had recommended that Badawi, who was also sentences to 600 lashes, should face graver charges .<\/p>\n<p>Raif Badawi is the founder of the Free Saudi Liberals website, created in 2008 to freely discuss the role of religion in Saudi Arabia. His persecution for what was described as \u201cinsulting Islam\u201d started the same year the site was set up.<\/p>\n<p>The blogger then fled the country to escape arrest. He returned when the charges against him were dropped, but was eventually jailed in June 2012. In July this year, a criminal court in Jeddah him guilty of insulting Islam through his online forum and of violating Saudi Arabia\u2019s anti-cybercrime law.<\/p>\n<p>The court\u2019s ruling was condemned by international human rights watchdogs. Said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch:<\/p>\n<p>    This incredibly harsh sentence for a peaceful blogger makes a mockery of Saudi Arabia\u2019s claims that it supports reform and religious dialogue. A man who wanted to discuss religion has already been locked up for a year and now faces 600 lashes and seven years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>Badawi\u2019s possible retrial is the latest episode in the country\u2019s crackdown on dissent. Four members of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) were jailed in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>In the most recent case in December, 24-year-old Omar al-Saeed was sentenced to four years in prison and 300 lashes after calling for political reform. Amnesty International called for the activist\u2019s immediate release. After serving his sentence he will be prohibited from travelling for four years. <a href=\"http:\/\/freethinker.co.uk\/2013\/12\/27\/saudi-blogger-jailed-for-insulting-islam-faces-a-new-trial-for-apostasy-which-is-punishable-by-death\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8230;more<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"igit_tsb_button\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crookedbough.com%2F%3Fp%3D19512&amp;text=Saudi+Blogger+Raif+Badawi+jailed+for+resistance+to+Regime+on+charges+punishable+by+death&amp;count=horizontal&amp;via=\" style=\"\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saudi blogger jailed for \u2018insulting Islam\u2019 faces a new trial for apostasy, which is punishable by deathath By Barry Duke &#8211; 27 December, 2013 SAUDI blogger and activist, Raif Badawi, currently serving a 7-year prison term for \u2018insulting Islam\u2019, may soon appear in a higher court on graver charges of apostasy. If found guilty, he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=19512#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[4220],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19512"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19513,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19512\/revisions\/19513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}