Tag: Raif Badawi

Ensaf Haidar asks Obama and Kerry to do what 60 members of Congress have done, and demand the immediate release of Raif Badawi.

When I am allowed to speak with Raif, I brief him about all that is being done on his behalf. Because of a global outcry by citizens and governments of the world, Raif has not been flogged for 11 consecutive weeks. But I know that as soon as the media spotlight fades and pressure on the repressive Saudi monarchy eases, Saudi Arabia may seek to do what it pleases with my husband. It is critical that the pressure not abate, not even for an instant.

More than a million people around the world have demanded that the Saudi Arabian authorities release my husband, including more than 60 members of Congress who have sent a letter to the Saudi king calling for his release. But despite this, neither the White House nor Secretary of State John Kerry has followed suit. I beg members of the administration to follow their congressional colleagues’ lead and demand that Raif be released immediately. The United States presents itself as a champion of human rights throughout the world. It cannot allow its important strategic relationship with the kingdom to overshadow its moral standing. Raif must be returned to my arms, not dragged to his death.

Do it, Barack Obama. Do it, John Kerry.

Saudi Arabia has tried to order Quebec to back off in its criticism of Saudi’s appalling human rights record. Quebec has said Nope.

The CBC has seen the letter:

Quebec’s premier is not backing down in his opposition to the imprisonment and torture of blogger Raif Badawi, despite the Saudi ambassador’s written caution to Quebec politicians to mind their own business.

“We have made our opinion known. It’s normal that we did so,” Philippe Couillard told reporters as he made his way to a cabinet meeting in Quebec City Wednesday.

Naif Bin Bandir Al-Sudairy, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Canada, sent a letter to Quebec’s National Assembly in March telling them not to meddle in the case of the jailed blogger or criticize the country’s human rights record.

“Torture” – note that the CBC calls it torture, which it is. Most mainstream media refuse to be that blunt about it. After all, Saudia Arabia is a sovereign blah blah blah blah blah.

In a letter obtained by CBC News and addressed to the speaker, the ambassador writes Saudi Arabia “does not accept any form of interference in its internal affairs.”

“The Kingdom does not accept at all any attack on it in the name of human rights, especially when its constitution is based on Islamic law, which guarantees human rights (sic),” the letter, dated March 10, reads.

Nice (sic) too.

Islamic law does the very opposite of guaranteeing human rights. That’s why there is such a thing as the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam: it’s in order to rule out any human rights that are not “compatible with sharia,” as so many important ones are not.

And we can see the truth of this when we consider what Saudi Arabia actually does, such as for instance sentencing Raif Badawi to 1000 lashes, 10 years in prison, and a fine of one million riyals, for writing his opinions about religion on a website. That’s not a situation in which human rights have been guaranteed.

Couillard and other Quebec politicians of all stripes have strongly denounced the kingdom’s treatment of Badawi.

On Wednesday, Kathleen Weil, Quebec’s immigration minister, said the government’s position has not wavered.

“It’s mostly important for us to reiterate our firm opposition to his imprisonment and our defence of human rights,” she said.

In February, the National Assembly unanimously passed a motion condemning the whipping of Badawi, and expressing support for his wife, Ensaf Haidar, and their three children, who are refugees living in Sherbrooke, Que.

Bien fait, Québec.

And the speaker’s office sent a copy of the motion to the Saudi ambassador in Ottawa.

Badawi’s supporters believe the ambassador’s letter to Quebec politicians shows the Saudi government is feeling the public pressure over the case.

“We are happy they responded because it seems that they find the need to respond because the pressure is so great, but of course the content of what they say is not true,” said Mireille Elchacar, a friend of the Badawi family who works for Amnesty International.

It’s not only not true, it’s the reverse of what is true. It’s not divergent from the truth but the opposite of the truth.

“Quebec has shown a unified, political stance against this and I think that has somewhat shocked Saudi Arabia,” said Kyle Matthews, senior deputy director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University.

“It’s embarrassed them and they feel they have to do something to set the record straight or at least try to be seen as arguing their position from a moral and legal perspective, but it’s really hard to take that seriously,” he said.

And in fact it left itself open to even more scorn and contempt. I wrote my most recent Free Inquiry column on this subject. I enjoyed writing it, I have to say.

Here’s another thing we can sign – a call to political action to Free Raif and Waleed.

So far 12 MPs, 9 MSPs, and 4 members of the House of Lords have signed. Scores of prominent human rights activists, writers, lawyers and journalists have also signed as well as hundreds of others (see below). Please continue to add your name to this statement. Further action will be necessary.

Raif’s wife Ensaf Haidar has just written to us about this letter.
“I am very grateful for your action in support of my husband’s freedom– please help me get my husband back. His children need him”

Saudi blogger Raif Badawi is currently imprisoned in a Saudi Arabian jail having received the first 50 of a threatened 1,000 lashes. If Raif survives these floggings he faces another 10 years in jail. His ‘crime’ was to have set up a website that called for peaceful change of the Saudi regime away from the repressive and religiously exclusive regime that it is.

In another shameful act his lawyer Waleed Abu Al-Khair, and other human rights activists were also later arrested. On February 20^th this year Waleed had his sentence confirmed as 15 years in prison.

The European Parliament in its resolution of Feb 12^th made clear its demands on Saudi Arabia to release Raif, as well as his lawyer Waleed and others imprisoned there for exercising their freedom of speech.

But to free Raif from this nightmare needs more than politicians saying that they disapprove of his punishment.

The total EU trade with the Saudi regime is currently close to €64 billion a year. The UK alone has approaching £12 billion invested in Saudi Arabia whilst it continues to invite Saudi investment in the UK, particularly in the property market. Saudi investment in the UK is currently over £62.5 billion.

As the regime inflicts beheadings and floggings on its people, questions have to be asked about why more cannot be done to promote the human rights of citizens of a country with which there is such extensive business. Particularly questions have to be asked about the morality of providing such a regime with arms, particularly the weaponry and facilities they use in their brutal penal system.

We ask that you make publicly clear your complete opposition to the human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia and demand the immediate release of Raif and Waleed as the EU parliament has done. We also ask that you make publicly clear what measures you will take as a government to put any trading with this regime on an ethical basis and what conditions you will demand from the Saudi regime if all of that trade is to continue – particularly in relation to weapons that might be used in oppression or imprisonment.

If nothing is done to stop the brutality, beheadings and floggings that are committed there – then any moral stand taken against similar horrors committed elsewhere by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria can only be compromised.

In the spirit of consistency, transparency and humanity we ask you to take action to Free Raif and promote human rights in Saudi Arabia

Yours

 

Links and instructions for signing are on the page.

There’s a report in Stern, in German, that Raif Badawi’s case has been sent by the Jeddah Criminal Court to the High Court. Elham Manea took it seriously enough to share with Ensaf Haidar, and Ensaf shared it with everyone.

That could be either good or bad; it’s unknown which.

But don’t worry – the OIC just told us that

Islam, which Saudi Arabia – a founding member of the OIC – is governed by, is centered on the values of justice, compassion, equality, tolerance and the notion of human vicegerency.

So obviously Saudi Arabia isn’t going to behead Raif for expressing an opinion about religion that the Saudi rulers don’t share. That wouldn’t be just or compassionate or egalitarian or tolerant.

The Sydney Morning Herald also reports on Saudi Arabia’s shock and sorrow at being rebuked for torturing its citizens over their expressed opinions.

Saudi Arabia defended its human rights record in its first public reaction to international criticism over last year’s sentencing of liberal Saudi blogger Raif Badawi to 1000 lashes and 10 years in jail for “insulting Islam”.

The first 50 of Mr Badawi’s lashes were carried out in January, prompting strong criticism of the kingdom’s rights record from Western countries, including its laws on political and religious expression and the status of Saudi women.

“Saudi Arabia expresses its intense surprise and dismay at what is being reported by some media about the case of citizen Raif Badawi and his sentence,” a statement attributed to an unnamed “Foreign Ministry official” said.

You shouldn’t be surprised, Saudi Arabia. You’re not that stupid. You live in the real world. You accept our money in exchange for your oil, and you know we don’t all share your views of what human beings owe to invented gods and their self-proclaimed prophets and dictators who claim to rule in their name. You know we don’t share your views of what is appropriate and reasonable punishment or what constitutes crime.

Hey, you want to return the favor? Rebuke the US for its outrageously huge prison population, its racist drug laws and enforcement of those laws, the racist “banter” of the Ferguson cops? Do it! Knock yourselves out. The US has a horrible record in many areas, and a horrendous one in the past. We were a slave country until a shockingly recent date! You can accuse us of all sorts of things, accurately. And we can accuse you.

The statement said Saudi courts were independent and that the kingdom’s constitution ensured the protection of human rights because it was based on Islamic sharia law.

But sharia isn’t about human rights. That’s what’s wrong with it. It’s about goddy rights. It doesn’t ensure the protection of human rights at all. It’s about what humans owe to god, not what we owe to each other.

“Saudi Arabia at the same time emphasises that it does not accept interference in any form in its internal affairs”, the statement said.

Yeah, and Daddy doesn’t accept interference in any form in his affairs, either, but once those affairs affect other people, it’s no longer just Daddy’s business or Saudi Arabia’s business.

[Saudi Arabia] does not permit the public worship of other faiths or allow them to maintain places of worship inside the country. In a new law last year, it included atheism as a terrorist offence.

It uses the death penalty for offences including blasphemy, apostasy and witchcraft.

Unacceptable. We get to say that. Liberal universalists get to say that, to Saudi Arabia or North Korea or Texas or anyone.