The wife of a Saudi Arabian liberal blogger who was jailed and sentenced to receive 1,000 lashes has described her shock when she found out he had been publicly flogged.
Raif Badawi was arrested in 2012 and initially sentenced to seven years’ jail and 600 lashes for a range of offences, ranging from insulting Islam, setting up a liberal discussion group online and disobeying his father.
On appeal, his sentence was increased to 10 years and 1,000 lashes.
His wife Ensaf Haidar was given asylum in Canada, where she is living with the couple’s three young children.
She spoke to ABC’s The World program about her shock at hearing 50 lashes had been administered last year.
“It was just shocking, I felt so sick,” she said.
“[Last year] was a difficult year. A horrible year for all of us.”
Ms Haidar founded the Raif Badawi Foundation for Freedom (RBFF) to promote free speech and said she stood by her husband’s actions and liberal views.
“What he was saying was reasonable. His writing never crossed the line … He was simply exercising his right to expression,” she said.
“He would say he couldn’t [move overseas] because he loved Saudi Arabia.
“He loved his country, but he also believed in freedom of expression and that’s what ultimately got him in trouble.”
Ms Haider wrote a book earlier this year, Raif Badawi: The Voice of Freedom: My Husband, Our Story, detailing the story of how they met and her campaign to free him.
