I reported on Raif Badawi before here.
The founder of a website calling for religious liberalisation has been sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes. How does someone survive 600 lashes? Since they couldn’t execute him for apostasy as was initially planned, they hope to kill him with 600 lashes (150 at a time).
His lawyer said that Raif, a father of three, had confirmed that he was a Muslim but told the judge “everyone has a choice to believe or not believe.”
Indeed they do, but not yet under Sharia and Islamism in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iraq…
When is it going to end? It has to soon.
It’ll be a good day when innocents like Raif walk free and the rulers of Saudi, Iran and elsewhere are in jail where they belong.
Raif must be freed. No ifs and buts.
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As an aside Muslims for Progressive Values has issued a statement in his defence here. (Thanks to Chris Roche for the link.) There shouldn’t be one person – Muslim or not – who doesn’t denounce this sentence and demand that Raid be released.
Yet another evil crime that Islam must be made to pay for. In such societies where mediaeval values are the norm, fighting fire with fire is, sadly, the only option.
Why can’t they execute him? And if they can’t, why is it still okay to administer a fatal number of lashes? And why bother dividing it into batches of 150?
How many lashes can a Human survive? I’ve heard that in the days of naval floggings, 20 lashes was often fatal. Are there statistics on this kind of thing? That’s just an incredible amount of whipping. It’s sadistic — literally, it is sadism.
On a side note, WOW, is that a professional glamour photo? He looks like he’s about to jump out of the photo and take me out dancing. Where did CBS get such an amazing photo of someone who is stuck in prison?
Because he has said he is a Muslim, it makes it harder to charge him with apostasy. Also he was founder of a website before his arrest so there must have been photos of him on his site and others.