Raif Badawi’s scheduled public
flogging on Friday 16 January was postponed on medical grounds. He is a
prisoner of conscience who was publicly flogged the previous Friday,
receiving 50 lashes. He remains at imminent risk of receiving the
remaining 950 lashes over the coming weeks.
On Friday 16 January Raif Badawi was removed from his cell and
taken to the prison clinic for a medical check-up before his sentence
was due to be carried out. The doctor concluded that the flogging should
be postponed given that Raif Badawi’s wounds, sustained from the
previous week’s flogging, had not yet healed sufficiently and that he
would not be able to withstand another round of lashes.
It is feared that Raif Badawi will receive his next set of 50
lashes on Friday 23 January, despite mass protests organized by
activists in front of Saudi Arabian embassies worldwide and official
appeals, including by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights who
called the flogging “at the very least, a form of cruel and inhuman
punishment... prohibited under international human rights law, in
particular the Convention against Torture, which Saudi Arabia has
ratified”.
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