Death Penalty News

Saudi blogger Raif Badawi - jailed and sentenced to 1,000 lashes for "insulting Islam online" - has been freed, his wife says. "Raif called me. He is free," Ensaf Haidar told AFP news agency from Canada, where she fled with the couple's three children. The blogger's first 50 lashes caused a global outcry and he became an emblem of rights abuses in the country. There has been no official Saudi comment on his release. Mr Badawi's son Terad also tweeted: "My father is free." His sentence ended on 1 March. However, he is subject to a 10-year-travel ban and it is unclear whether he will face other restrictions. The NGO Reporters Without Borders said it would work to ensure he can join his family in Canada despite the ban. Mr Badawi, now 38, established the Liberal Saudi Network, a forum that sought to encourage debate on religious and political matters in Saudi Arabia, in 2008. In 2012, Mr Badawi was arrested in the city of Jeddah and charged with ...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia's King Salman has ordered an end to the death penalty for crimes committed by minors, according to a statement Sunday by a top official. The decision comes on the heels of another ordering judges to end the practice of flogging, replacing it with jail time, fines or community service and bringing one of the kingdom’s most controversial forms of public punishment to a close. King Salman's son and heir, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is seen as the force behind the kingdom’s loosening of restrictions and its pivot away from ultraconservative interpretations of Islamic law known as Wahhabism, which many in the country still closely adhere to. RELATED |  Saudi Arabia courts abolish flogging as punishment The crown prince has sought to modernize the country, attract foreign investment and revamp Saudi Arabia’s reputation globally. He's also overseen a parallel crackdown on liberals, women's rights activists, writ...

Saudi Arabia has abolished flogging as a legal punishment in response to criticism of its use of corporal punishment, the Supreme Court has announced. Hundreds of lashes could previously be ordered for a variety of offences, including murder, extramarital sex and breach of the peace.  Despite the change attributed to reforms under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Amnesty International reported last week that Saudi Arabia executed a record 184 people in 2019, accusing the kingdom of using the death penalty notably against Shia Muslim dissidents.  The Saudi supreme court said the latest reform was intended to "bring the kingdom into line with international human rights norms against corporal punishment". In the future, judges will have to choose between fines and/or jail sentences, or non-custodial alternatives like community service, the court said in a statement seen by AFP on Saturday. The change has followed increased criticism of Saudi Arabia's ...

A MAN in Saudi Arabia could face the death penalty after he was arrested over this clip of a foot stepping on the Quran just days before Ramadan. The man, who has not been named, reportedly uploaded the clip to social media where it was widely shared in the Gulf state. In the video, a Quran can be seen being thrown to the floor and stepped on with a bare foot. The clip was reportedly uploaded to an Instagram account which proclaimed "repentance" in its bio section and the only upload was the video. It remains unclear whether the man who shared the clip was the man in the footage. Reports said the video caused outrage in Saudi Arabia with some calling for the person responsible arrest and death. Those found guilty of apostasy — abandoning their religious belief — face the death penalty in Saudi Arabia where strict blasphemy laws remain. It is unclear if the suspect has been charged. The incident comes just days before the holy month of Ramada...

Even as the brouhaha over the Saudi-Canada diplomatic spat plays out, Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor is vigorously pursuing the death penalty for 29-year-old human rights activist Israa al-Ghomgham, along with four others. This unprecedented development, which may lead Israa to become the first woman activist to be beheaded, has enraged international human rights organisations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Israa is charged with a non-violent crime — of protesting against the government and engaging in political activism by rendering “moral support to rioters.” As all five are under trial in a secret terrorism court  for peaceful activism, rights groups have organised protests across the world, including outside the Saudi Embassy in London, and called upon the international community to pressure Saudi Arabia to not only call off their execution, but also put an end to death penalty. The charges appear to be politically motivated and unfair. Pu...

By social-media standards these days, a tweet sent last Thursday by Canada’s Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland, was hardly surprising—or a deviation from what other Western governments have said for years about Saudi Arabia’s egregious human-rights record. Her tweet addressed the case of siblings—Samar Badawi, a women’s-rights activist honored by the Obama Administration as a “woman of courage,” and her brother, Raif , a blogger who has been imprisoned since 2012, after chastising the Saudi monarchy for things like banning Valentine’s Day. Freeland tweeted , “Very alarmed to learn that Samar Badawi, Raif Badawi’s sister, has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia. Canada stands together with the Badawi family in this difficult time, and we continue to strongly call for the release of both Raif and Samar Badawi.” The Canadian Foreign Ministry followed up with a tweet that called for the release of “all peaceful #humanrights activists” held by the Gulf monarchy. The Canadian Embassy in Ri...

“We want to lead normal lives, lives where our religion and our traditions translate into tolerance.” “For me, liberalism simply means, live and let live. This is a splendid slogan.” Who could have imagined that these equally conciliatory concepts would result in such conflicting consequences? Yet in Saudi Arabia, the advocate of one is heralded as a reformer, while the other is harassed for being a radical. Indeed, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohamed bin Salman said the former ; imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, the latter . Born one year apart, these millennials have given expression to the vision and values of a younger generation, one that is empowered by the digital age, implicated in a globalizing world and impervious to the religious orthodoxy of some clerical elite. However, while the Crown Prince travels the world touting a transformed Kingdom, Badawi has languished in a Saudi prison for almost six years now, for professing his vision for re...

Atheism remains one of the most extreme taboos in Saudi Arabia. It is a red line that no one may cross. Regarded on a par with terrorists, atheists in Saudi Arabia suffer imprisonment, marginalisation, slander, ostracisation and even execution. Efforts at normalisation between those who believe and those who don't remain bleak. Despite constant warnings issued by Saudi religious authorities about 'the dangers of atheism', which is, according to them, 'tantamount to not believing in God', many citizens in the kingdom are turning their backs on Islam. Among other things, perhaps what is primarily driving Saudis to abandon their religion is the country's strict and dehumanising codex of Islamic law coupled with easy access to information and mass communication. Unfortunately, those who are open about their atheism find themselves harshly punished or forced to live double lives. Just recently Saudi Arabia sentenced another atheist to death for uploading a...

Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir is pictured in a courtroom in Nouadhibou, Mauritania, in April in a picture supplied by his sister. Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir awaits the final verdict for a blog seen as critical of Mauritania's caste system. In the dusty Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott, thousands of protesters armed with loudspeakers gathered outside the country’s Supreme Court on November 15. Demonstrators held messages of protests on paper, some worn around their heads to keep their hands free, and demanded the court uphold the death sentence against Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir, a Mauritanian blogger imprisoned in January 2014 on charges of apostasy. His alleged crime was to defame the name of the Prophet Muhammad. “Our first demand [is] to execute this criminal. The Prophet Muhammad is our honor, nobody has right to talk about him!” said one unidentified protester outside the court. For Mkhaitir’s sister, the scene was almost too much to bear. “Whe...