Saudi Arabia’s supreme court has upheld a sentence of 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes against blogger Raif Badawi on charges of insulting Islam, according to his wife, as reported by CNN.
The judgement came despite worldwide outrage over his case and criticism from the United Nations, United States, the European Union, Canada and others.
“This is a final decision that is irrevocable,” Ensaf Haidar told AFP in a telephone interview from Canada. “This decision has shocked me.”
Badawi has already received the first 50 of the 1,000 lashes he was sentenced to outside a mosque in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on 9th, January this year. Subsequent rounds of punishment were postponed on medical grounds.
According to theGuardian, Amnesty International slammed the “abhorrent” decision to uphold a “cruel and unjust sentence,” describing it as a “dark day for freedom of expression.”
