Raif Badawi has won the European Parliamentās Sakharov prize for human rights.
Badawi is the Saudi Arabian blogger, writer, activist, and creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals, an online platform for political and religious debate.
He was arrested in 2012 on a charge of insulting Islam through electronic channels and brought to court on several charges, including apostasy.
In 2013, he was convicted of several charges and sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes.
In 2014, he was re-sentenced to 1,000 lashes, ten years in prison, and a fine.
The lashes were scheduled to be administered over 20 weeks. The first 50 were administered on January 9, 2015. The second set has been postponed more thanĀ Ā twelve times due to Badawi’s poor health.
Named after the Soviet Humanist scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, the award was created in 1988 to honour people and organisations defending human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The announcement was greeted with a standing ovation at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
Guy Verhofstadt MEP, leader of the Liberal bloc, said: āThe European parliament has sent today a strong political and humanitarian message to the Saudi Arabian authorities. We urge His Majesty King Salman to release Raif Badawi from prison and, in any case, to end the barbaric punishment of flogging.ā
George Broadhead, Secretary of the Pink Triangle Trust, welcomed the news and said: āThis award must be very welcome to everyone concerned about humans rights. It is also a slap in the face for the Saudi Arabian Islamic theocracy. Together with Iran, Saudi Arabia has the worst record of human rights abuses worldwide. One of the most barbaric punishments, meted out under the countryās Sharia Law, is flogging. As well as severely breaking skin and causing heavy bruising, this punishment can lead to nerve damage, infections, psychological trauma and even death in extreme cases. Other ācrimesā punishable by flogging include being in possession of alcohol and, if youāre a women, driving.
āBritish and other Western governments are rightly outraged by the appalling barbaric actions of ISIS, but are these so different from those of Saudi Arabia which they support? They both engage in public beheadings, floggings, torture, amputations, stoning, crucifixion, executing gays, oppressing women and endorsing child marriage, yet these governments seem blind to this reality, choosing to drop bombs on one and sell them to the other.ā
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