Saudi blogger sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison for starting website about secularism

[Kuya]

Title explains it all, but recently, due to international outcry, his case might be reviewed. He already received 50 lashes and was scheduled for another 50 today but it was suspended, allegedly, due to poor health.

Badawi established Liberal Saudi Network, a now-closed online forum that sought to encourage debate on religious and political matters in Saudi Arabia in 2008.
In 2012, he was arrested in Jeddah and charged with "insulting Islam through electronic channels" and "going beyond the realm of obedience".
In 2013 he was cleared of apostasy, which could have carried a death sentence.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30856403

[Grey Jorildyn]

Lashes? What is this the fucking middle ages? This has been out of hand for too long with no solution in sight.

[Tyrath]

Lashes? What is this the fucking middle ages? This has been out of hand for too long with no solution in sight.

It's a pretty common form of punishment in Saudi Arabia. I'm sure other countries too but that is where I hear about it the most.

Obviously the sentencing itself is a joke, but I'm surprised that they are even reviewing it because of the outcry. Here's hoping something will be changed but I'm not too hopeful.

[Blubbartron]

Lashes? What is this the fucking middle ages? This has been out of hand for too long with no solution in sight.

Pretty much the middle ages, yeah.

The thing that's funny is, from my understanding, the only reason he isn't being sentenced to death for apostasy is because they refuse to accept his claims that he's an atheist. In muslim states, your religion is usually printed on identification cards, so apparently they went "look, you're not an atheist, it says so on your ID." This is the kind of bullshit that happens when otherwise intelligent, educated people try to adhere strictly to ridiculous books written hundreds of years ago.

[Waraji]

Careful there Blub, might not want to go down the route of making this another "religion is bad" threads. Might get the mods in another tizzy.

[Melena]

Lashes? What is this the fucking middle ages? This has been out of hand for too long with no solution in sight.

Unless something's changed recently, Singapore still canes people. I remember a while ago a huge outrage when an american teen who was visiting got busted for vandalism and got something like 10 strikes with a cane.

[Grey Jorildyn]

Careful there Blub, might not want to go down the route of making this another "religion is bad" threads. Might get the mods in another tizzy.

Religion is bad. What's the argument?

[BaneTheBrawler]

The argument is not gonna happen.

[Koyangi]

I thought this one was worse and it's kinda recent too. My opinion on either of these cases is the government (which is their religion/ideaology) want their public to know to not do these things. So even though they are using outdated and extreme forms of punishment, going against the religion or in the case of what I linked - giving women any kind of "power" is bad and won't be tolerated.

related to my link too: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/1...n_6054896.html

[notorious bum]

The U.S. spokeswoman, whatever the hell her name is, had to respond to a reporter's question of why we don't demand that the Saudis outlaw the practice. Her reply was something along the lines of "well, we're not in the business to make demands on other countries." lol

[Andalusian girls]

as regressive as the House of Saud is it should be remembered that in their society exists a diehard Wahhabist minority far more fundamentalist than they and that the bulk of internal dissent has come not from anti-monarchists or civil rights advocates but from these religious extremists who find the regime lacking in piety; their most famous anti-establishment outburst being the Mecca hostage crisis that left hundreds dead, immediately followed by the chicken-shit monarchy mandating stricter religious laws to placate the fanatics.

the monarchy is absolute, and profoundly religiously conservative, but there have been efforts at cultural modernization. the ruling apparatus recently allocated 1/3rd of all government positions for women thereby introducing the previously indigestible sight of men and women working side by side, there has been a serious reformation of the education system away from rote memorization and religious instruction, and journalistic rights have slowly improved. they even allowed a few outside polling firms into the country to conduct popular surveys, where, interestingly, 54% of respondents said that religious extremism was a serious problem in the Kingdom; Wahhabism may not be as deeply entrenched among the majority as generally thought (though Al Qaeda enjoyed support of around 20% and 35% believed it was an Islamic responsibility to fund Mujahideen movements across the globe, the true believers are possibly a minority but boy do they believe). all long-time observers of the Kingdom concur that Saudi Arabia is undergoing cultural progression, though a very slow and cautious one as the monarchy is inveterately worried of alienating the Wahhabist extremists whom they rightly see as the most significant threat to the establishment, and they are equally concerned of fostering any kind of populist or democratic impetus that could subvert their tyrannical rule.

in other terms though i hate the monarchy as i hate hell and all Montagues the most feasible alternative at present is far worse and the best path forward is to continue to encourage these ameliorative baby step reforms until a viable moderate dissident movement arises that is capable of overseeing a transitional political movement.

[Andalusian girls]

in other Saudi news, King Abdullah has died

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...y.html?hpid=z1

King Abdullah pumped billions of dollars into modernization of the Saudi educational system, opened up the Saudi economy, ushered his country into the World Trade Organization, curbed the authority of the religious police, pardoned some victims of an unforgiving judiciary, met with then-Pope Benedict XVI and espoused interfaith tolerance, cracked down on extremism, reached out to women and offered a plan for Arab peace with Israel.

Yet the cumulative effect of his policies was to reinforce the House of Saud’s absolute power over the country. His embrace of reform did not extend to politics. Dissenters who went too far were jailed or silenced, and he scrapped a brief experiment with elections.

Prince Salman is the designated heir apparent, but is 79 and in poor health, with reports of him suffering from Alzheimer's. Saudi Arabia could potentially destabilize over the succession, especially if Salman's reign proves brief.

[Waraji]

This should be converted to unofficial Saudi thread, monarchy, oil, not islam. Yea.

[Mazmaz]

Apparently Yemen is destabilizing right now as well. SO GLAD THIS IS ALL HAPPENING AT THE SAME TIME GUYS

[Andalusian girls]

well Yemen has faced the Houthi Rebellion since 2004, a Shia minority making all the current noise by their successful assault on the capital. they've also faced an Al Qaeda insurgency in the south since 2001, and that ensconced in a broader southern separatist movement composed of those who have never accepted the 1990 unification of North Yemen + South Yemen as legitimate. much of what remains of the ineffectual government is schisming, but Yemen has been mired in a three-way civil war for over a decade. been a collapsed state for a long while now.



a rough map, yellow is Houthi territory, pink is government, grey is Al Qaeda + the southern separatists

[Mazmaz]

So basically the effects of colonialism coming back to bite us in the ass 50-100 years later in all these places?

[notorious bum]

This story is a real trip man.

An Interview with the Imprisoned Daughter of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah
http://muftah.org/interview-imprison.../#.VMIoKEesU2K

Sahar and her three sisters Jawaher, Maha, and Hala have been held under effective house arrest by their father, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, for nearly 13 years. For years, their mother, Alanoud Al Fayez, has been advocating for their release from her home in London. In an unedited interview conducted via email, I asked Sahar, the eldest of the four sisters, about the reasons for her confinement and her thoughts on women’s rights in the Kingdom.