A Saudi blogger who was sentenced to prison and publicly flogged on charges that he had insulted Islam was awarded a major free -speech prize on Tuesday in London.
The blogger, Raif Badawi, was named the international co-recipient of Britain’s PEN Pinter Prize. He was chosen from a shortlist by the poet James Fenton, who was the British recipient of the award in June. Mr. Badawi is serving a 10-year sentence after his conviction last year on charges including “violating Islamic values and propagating liberal thought,” according to English PEN, the writers group that bestows the prize. A Saudi court fined him one million riyals, about $267,000, and sentenced him to receive 1,000 lashes spread out over 20 floggings.
Video of Mr. Badawi receiving his first 50 lashes in January appeared on YouTube, prompting condemnation from Western governments and human rights groups, which have called for his release. Saudi officials have postponed further lashings.
Mr. Badawi’s case has renewed attention to the Saudi government’s harsh treatment of dissidents for acts that are considered essential rights in the West.
At a ceremony on Tuesday in London, Mr. Fenton said he was moved by the contrast between Mr. Badawi’s “liberal aims” and the “ferocity” of the punishment leveled against him.
“It is a world of inconceivable cruelty, but intimately linked to ours by business, strategic interests, military and diplomatic ties,” he said. “For our part, then, protest has a purpose and — who knows? — perhaps even a chance of some sort of success.”
The PEN Pinter Prize was established in 2009 in honor of Harold Pinter, the Nobel Prize-winning British playwright. It is given jointly to a British writer seen as sharing Mr. Pinter’s “unflinching, unswerving” view of society and to an “international writer of courage” who has faced persecution.
On his now-defunct website, the Free Saudi Liberals, Mr. Badawi criticized what he considered religious hypocrisy, lauded Western legal systems and said that atheists should have the right to state their views without punishment.
Prominent clerics responded with accusations that he was seeking to spread atheism, and Mr. Badawi received personal threats. He was imprisoned in 2012.
An anthology of his writings, “1000 Lashes: Because I Say What I Think,” was published in September. Proceeds go to his family’s efforts to secure his release.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/w...t&contentID=WhatsNext&src=recg&pgtype=article
The blogger, Raif Badawi, was named the international co-recipient of Britain’s PEN Pinter Prize. He was chosen from a shortlist by the poet James Fenton, who was the British recipient of the award in June. Mr. Badawi is serving a 10-year sentence after his conviction last year on charges including “violating Islamic values and propagating liberal thought,” according to English PEN, the writers group that bestows the prize. A Saudi court fined him one million riyals, about $267,000, and sentenced him to receive 1,000 lashes spread out over 20 floggings.
Video of Mr. Badawi receiving his first 50 lashes in January appeared on YouTube, prompting condemnation from Western governments and human rights groups, which have called for his release. Saudi officials have postponed further lashings.
Mr. Badawi’s case has renewed attention to the Saudi government’s harsh treatment of dissidents for acts that are considered essential rights in the West.
At a ceremony on Tuesday in London, Mr. Fenton said he was moved by the contrast between Mr. Badawi’s “liberal aims” and the “ferocity” of the punishment leveled against him.
“It is a world of inconceivable cruelty, but intimately linked to ours by business, strategic interests, military and diplomatic ties,” he said. “For our part, then, protest has a purpose and — who knows? — perhaps even a chance of some sort of success.”
The PEN Pinter Prize was established in 2009 in honor of Harold Pinter, the Nobel Prize-winning British playwright. It is given jointly to a British writer seen as sharing Mr. Pinter’s “unflinching, unswerving” view of society and to an “international writer of courage” who has faced persecution.
On his now-defunct website, the Free Saudi Liberals, Mr. Badawi criticized what he considered religious hypocrisy, lauded Western legal systems and said that atheists should have the right to state their views without punishment.
Prominent clerics responded with accusations that he was seeking to spread atheism, and Mr. Badawi received personal threats. He was imprisoned in 2012.
An anthology of his writings, “1000 Lashes: Because I Say What I Think,” was published in September. Proceeds go to his family’s efforts to secure his release.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/07/w...t&contentID=WhatsNext&src=recg&pgtype=article
