A Saudi Arabian court has just sentenced the editor of a progressive social media website to seven years in prison and 600 lashes. It says that the Internet forum he created, "Free Saudi Liberals," violates Islamic values and promotes liberal thought.
The government has held Raif Badawi since June of last year. It could have been worse: there were predictions that Badawi would be convicted of apostasy and perhaps executed.
This is, in a word, appalling. If this sort of thing happened in the United States, or Europe, or Israel, there would be an uproar. But it seems that when this kind of barbaric repression occurs in places like Saudi Arabia, people shrug their shoulders because we expect this sort of thing.
This is completely unacceptable from a country that ranks as one of our closest allies. As a progressive blogging community, we at DailyKos should be particularly outspoken in demanding that Badawi be freed -- and that Saudi Arabia end its repression of free speech.
http://www.reuters.com/...