A Saudi blogger is under threat of being executed for “apostasy” – meaning, daring to leave Islam.
A SAUDI judge has recommended that a liberal activist and blogger be tried in a higher court for apostasy, a charge that could carry the death penalty, rights campaigners say.
A court in the ultra-conservative kingdom sentenced Raef Badawi in July to seven years in jail and 600 lashes for setting up a “liberal” network and for allegedly insulting Islam.
On Wednesday, a judge remanded Badawi to the General Court on charges of apostasy, rights lawyer Waleed Abulkhair said.
“Ultra-conservative” doesn’t really cover it. Murderously theocratic, misogynist and racist would be more like it.
Badawi, 35, was arrested in June last year in the Red Sea city of Jeddah for unknown reasons.
The network that he co-founded with female rights activist Suad al-Shammari had declared May 7, 2012 a “day of liberalism” in the kingdom, calling for an end to the domination of religion over public life in Saudi Arabia.
The strict version of Islamic sharia law applied in Saudi Arabia stipulates death as a punishment for apostasy, but defendants are usually given the chance to repent and escape being beheaded.
Oh, isn’t that generous. All they have to do is knuckle under to the ferociously anti-human religion of the Saudi clerics and monarchy, and they will “escape being beheaded.” What need of liberalism with such generosity as that on offer?