A thousand lashes for one question‏

Imagine you are a young Saudi man. You raise questions about the society in which you live and, with friends, you create a website that the authorities quickly close. Then they take you away from your wife and three children and throw you in prison.

You are soon tried for inciting debates about political, religious and social issues in your country, and you are sentenced to ten years in prison, a fine of 200,000 euros and a ban on leaving the country for ten years after completing the jail term.

But that is not all. The court also sentences you to the medieval punishment of 1,000 lashes. So that it does not kill you, a torturer is ordered to carry it out in public in front of the mosque at the rate of 50 lashes once a week for 20 weeks. 

This is not a nightmare. This is the very real horror facing Raef Badawi, the founder of the Liberal Saudi Network. He languishes in a jail cell and does not know when this barbaric punishment will start.
 

Join Reporters Without Borders in calling for a halt to this inhuman torture.

Sign our petition urging Saudi Arabia's King Abdallah to quash Raef Badawi's iniquitous sentence!

Thanks,

Lucie Morillon
Reporters Without Borders program director