A Saudi court initially sentenced him to 800 lashes and four years in prison, but he says an appeals court recommended his charges and punishment be stiffened.
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A relative of the Palestinian artist sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for apostasy says his defense lawyers plan to appeal. After a case has been heard by lower courts, appeals courts and the supreme court, a convicted defendant can be pardoned by King Salman.
In a separate case that drew widespread condemnation, including from Saudi Arabia’s closest Western allies, Saudi blogger Raif Badawi was publicly flogged 50 times this year and is serving a 10-year sentence for criticizing the kingdom’s powerful religious establishment online.
But he was arrested again in January 2014 and, according to Human Rights Watch, charged with “blaspheming “the divine self” and the Prophet Muhammad; spreading atheism and promoting it among the youth in public places; mocking the verses of God and the prophets; refuting the Quran; denying the day of resurrection; objecting to fate and divine decree; and having an illicit relationship with women and storing their pictures in his phone”.
“We, the undersigned writers, artists, journalists and academics strongly reject the trial of Palestinian poet Ashraf [Fayadh] over the publication of a collection of poems and sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia”, said the petition, which so far has collected more than 4,000 signatures, according to organizers of the campaign.
“The judgment against me was based on the testimony of this student”, Fayadh said. He said Fayadh, who was born and raised in Abha, “is in a weak position” because he is originally Palestinian and does not have the backing of a powerful Saudi tribe to mediate on his behalf.
Matar, speaking to the AP by telephone, said Fayadh’s poetry book was about Palestinian issues.
The Saudi Justice Ministry plans to file a case against someone who wrote on Twitter that Fayadh’s ruling was “IS-like” in reference to the extremist group, a Saudi news website reported this week.
Fayadh, described by The Guardian as a “leading member of Saudi Arabia’s nascent contemporary art scene”, was first arrested at a café in the southern city of Abha, where he resides, in August 2013.
“He’s not an atheist”. He’s very sensitive, he’s very intelligent. He said the Arabic book, called “Instructions Within”, was published in Lebanon in 2008 and has not been published in Saudi Arabia.
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“The reality of art is you’re going to have to cases like this”, he added.
