In the latest of a number of incredibly inspiring efforts on behalf of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, (above) sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for his
moderate and thoughtful essays ,
a group of top academics have offered to take his punishment in his place.
Ever since Amnesty International sent out an email about the case of Raif Badawi, I've been unable to stop thinking about it. Here was a young man with a wife and three gorgeous kids roughly the age of my stepkids, and he was scheduled to take the first set of 50 lashes the following Friday, one of 20 sets the young man would face over the following weeks. After that, he would serve 10 years in prison.
I'm a PhD student of communication at the University of Washington, and perhaps it is the focus of our department on communication issues around the world that contributed to my horror. Certainly the world is not short of horror, but there was something about this case that captured my attention. The world was rallying with Paris against radical Islamist attacks on free speech, and as a longtime newspaper journalist, I was emotionally affected by what happened to the social critics at Charlie Hebdo. Now another journalist, this time a mild-mannered and rational blogger who, despite his own Muslim faith, was urging separation of church and state in Saudi Arabia, faced an incredibly vicious sentence.
Photos of him were of a slight young man with a hopeful smile, sometimes with his three children gathered in his arms. Horrified, I wondered just how bad 1,000 lashes is. Could he even survive? I learned that according to law, the practice is to administer the lashes in sets of 50, and that if doctors found him unable to withstand another round, he would be allowed an extra week to recover. Also, according to some sources, the person with the whip is supposed to hold a copy of the Koran under his arm to prevent to harsh of a blow. I was relieved to understand that the young man might survive, but still appalled at his fate, and grieved by the ordeal of his wife, the courageous and outspoken Ensaf Haidar, and children, now living under asylum near Montreal. If you can stand your heart completely broken,
here is Raif's son's video letter to his father in prison.
I also learned that the young man was once under sentence of death; at first, he was found guilty of apostasy, but unable to find proof that he had renounced his faith, he was found guilty of lesser charges on appeal, and he was instead found guilty of insulting Islam, among other offenses rather odd to a Western ear, such undermining the regime. I also learned that he is a guy of pretty remarkable courage. When sentenced to death, he held up a victory sign in court. The sentence he was ultimately given, of 10 years and 1000 lashes, was itself unusually harsh, perhaps the harshest ever meted out in Saudi for a mere speech act. It seems to be part of a recent crackdown.
I sent a letter along with a lot of other Amnesty supporters, and posted to my Facebook, and then started paying close attention. The case suddenly seemed to capture the imagination of the world. There were that week coordinated rallies in more than a dozen cities worldwide, from England to Tunisia. But Saudi Arabia went ahead. I watched, flinching but feeling as though I should be a witness, a Youtube video of people running to a red-bricked square, flocking to see Raif brought out, chained and flogged. At first, it didn't look that severe. I couldn't see what the man striking him held, but it wasn't the worst of my imagination. It looked rather light, even though there was no sign of the mitigating Koran held beneath the flogger's arm. And Raif stood still, as if not overly harmed, but the video didn't show his face. Later I learned what it was the officer held. It was a cane; in Singapore, a serious sentence is four lashes with such a cane. And I also learned that, though Raif, again demonstrating enormous courage by holding up a victory sign until a guard forced his hand down, stayed silent by chanting the names of his friends and supporters, witnesses said his face revealed his pain. That he was badly wounded is borne out by the fact that the following Friday, doctors pronounced his wounds still too severe to allow for the second week to proceed as scheduled.
I worried that as the weeks went on, outrage would lessen as people forget, but what happened instead was an international cry of horror, and efforts have become truly inspiring, as when 18 Nobel laureates wrote to the King of Saudi Arabia. The king is proud of Saudi Arabia's new research university, which he hopes to make a hub of science research, and which has actually gained some international credibility. The elite group of scholars warned the king that a regime in which open discussion is not tolerated isn't credible:
We are confident that influential voices in KAUST will be heard arguing for the freedom to dissent, without which no institution of higher learning can be viable.
the laureates wrote. Then, a surprisingly bipartisan group of US senators wrote a letter to the king on Raif's behalf. The senators were Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Jeanne Shaheen, R-N.H.; Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; Mark Kirk, R-Ill.; and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. If your senators are not among them, I hope you will write to them, as I did to Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, and ask them to add their voices.
Yesterday, news came of an even more moving appeal. Robert P. George, a Princeton professor and some of his colleagues have offered to bear Raif's lashings in his place. From the remarkable email to the Saudi ambassador:
Compassion, a virtue honored in Islam as well as in Christianity, Judaism, and other faiths, is defined as ‘suffering with another.’ We are persons of different faiths, yet we are united in a sense of obligation to condemn and resist injustice and to suffer with its victims, if need be. We therefore make the following request. If your government will not remit the punishment of Raif Badawi, we respectfully ask that you permit each of us to take 100 of the lashes that would be given to him. We would rather share in his victimization than stand by and watch him being cruelly tortured. If your government does not see fit to stop this from happening, we are prepared to present ourselves to receive our share of Mr. Badawi’s unjust punishment.
The signatories include Mary Ann Glendon, member of the Board, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty; M. Zuhdi Jasser, president, American Islamic Forum for Democracy; Daniel Mark assistant professor, Department of Political Science, Villanova University; Hannah Rosenthal, CEO, Milwaukee Jewish Federation; Eric Schwartz, dean, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota and Katrina Lantos Swett, president of Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice.
Raif was scheduled to be flogged again tomorrow. However, eight doctors have examined him and pronounced him as yet unable to withstand it. Saudi officials may stay their hands another week or they may not. The king, prior to the first round of lashes, sent his case back to the courts for review, but it seems they plan to continue to carry out the punishments in the mean time.
Let's don't forget Raif Badawi. The world is full of atrocity, and it's hard to know where to take a stand. I know we all have limited band width. But in the wake of the Paris massacre, the memorial to which the hypocritical Saudi regime sent a representative (!!!!!), as we all reflect on the value of free speech and the price many have paid for it, let's don't let this brave young man and his strong wife and three little kids face this alone. Let's see this one through.
Here is Amnesty International's list of five things you can do to help Raif Badawi and his loved ones.