Raif Badawi, Imprisoned Saudi Blogger, Is Awarded Free-Speech Prize - The New York Times

A Saudi blogger who was sentenced to prison and publicly flogged on charges that he had insulted Islam was awarded a major free -speech prize on Tuesday in London.

The blogger, Raif Badawi, was named the international co-recipient of Britain’s PEN Pinter Prize. He was chosen from a shortlist by the poet James Fenton, who was the British recipient of the award in June. Mr. Badawi is serving a 10-year sentence after his conviction last year on charges including “violating Islamic values and propagating liberal thought,” according to English PEN, the writers group that bestows the prize. A Saudi court fined him one million riyals, about $267,000, and sentenced him to receive 1,000 lashes spread out over 20 floggings.

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At a ceremony on Tuesday in London, Mr. Fenton said he was moved by the contrast between Mr. Badawi’s “liberal aims” and the “ferocity” of the punishment leveled against him.

“It is a world of inconceivable cruelty, but intimately linked to ours by business, strategic interests, military and diplomatic ties,” he said. “For our part, then, protest has a purpose and — who knows? — perhaps even a chance of some sort of success.”

Raif Badawi, Imprisoned Saudi Blogger, Is Awarded Free-Speech Prize - The New York Times