Mr Badawi is serving a 10-year sentence after being convicted of insulting Islam and breaking Saudi Arabia’s technology laws with his liberal blog.
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Jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi has won the European Union’s prestigious Sakharov Prize for human rights and freedom of thoughts, the European Parliament (EP) announced Thursday. He also was sentenced to 1,000 lashes, spread over 20 installments, and fined $266,000.
Schulz described Badawi as “an extremely good man, an exemplary man who has had imposed on him one of the most gruesome penalties that exist in this country, which can only be described as brutal torture”.
There was no official Saudi comment.
Badawi received the first of his 50 lashes in January, prompting strong criticism in Western countries of the kingdom’s human rights record, including its restrictive laws on political and religious expression and the status of Saudi women.
Saudi blogger Raif Badawi is seen in an undated portrait provided by Amnesty global.
“I hope that this prize is going to help advance” Badawi’s cause and allow him to rejoin his family, Haidar told AFP.
RSF past year named Badawi one of three winners of its press freedom prize.
Other nominees for the Prize included Edna Adan Ismail, a Somali campaigner for the abolition of female genital mutilation and a former government minister, Boris Nemtsov, a Russian physicist, former deputy prime minister and opposition politician who was assassinated earlier this year and Nadiya Savchenko, an Ukrainian military pilot and a member of the Verkhovna Rada and of Ukraine’s delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, who was captured on 18 June 2014 and illegally transferred to Russia.
Citing an informed source, Badawi’s wife on Tuesday said Saudi authorities had “given the green light to the resumption of Raif Badawi’s flogging”, saying it would take place “soon” at the prison where he is being held.
The prestigious Sakharov human rights prize is given every year to honour individuals who combat intolerance, fanaticism and oppression.
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Last year, the parliament awarded the prize to Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege for helping victims of gang rapes by soldiers. Among the previous recipients of the Sakharov prize are Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Malala Yousafzai, who were subsequentlyhonoured with the Nobel Peace Prize.
