Raif bin Muhammad Badawi is a Saudi writer, dissident and activist, as well as the creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals.
40 Facts About Raif Badawi
2.
Raif Badawi is known to have hypertension, and his health worsened after the flogging began.
3.
Ensaf Haidar has given a series of televised interviews about Raif Badawi's plight, including at the 2016 Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy.
4.
On 11 March 2022, his family reported that after 10 years Raif Badawi was released from prison.
5.
Raif Badawi cannot leave the kingdom for another 10 years unless a [royal] pardon is issued.
6.
Raif Badawi was born on 13 January 1984 in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, to Najwa, a Lebanese Christian, and Muhammad Badawi, a Saudi Muslim.
7.
Raif Badawi was presumed to be raised by his father and grandmother, who had low income.
8.
Raif Badawi attended school until the age of thirteen when his father reported him for parental disobedience, a crime in Saudi Arabia, and spent six months in a teenage detention centre: subsequent bullying, Wahhabi indoctrination, and flogging caused him to be scarred deeply.
9.
Raif Badawi started an online forum known as "Saudi Liberal Network" on 13 August 2006 under much influence from various sources.
10.
Raif Badawi was influenced by numerous books by Arab authors that refused to see the world on a purely religious standpoint, including The Universe Judges God by Abdullah al-Qasemi, Arab Culture in the Age of Globalization by Turki al-Hamad, and Prisoner 32 by Mohammed Saeed Tayeb, an author that Raif deeply admires and was placed under his wing.
11.
Raif Badawi frequented these meetings where he expressed his hopes for the development of civil society and the lessening of oppression in the name of religion.
12.
Raif Badawi sought to make Saudi citizens aware of their rights and responsibilities so that they would demand their rights.
13.
Raif Badawi's blog made headlines soon after it went online, as it was a space where Saudis could openly speak about liberalism in a conservative country where the king was known as the custodian of the two holiest sites of Islam, Mecca and Medina.
14.
On his blog Raif Badawi protested actions of the Mutawwa, but never directly criticized them.
15.
Raif Badawi questioned the logic of requiring all Saudis to believe in Islam.
16.
Raif Badawi explained to others in a Diwaniya meeting that they are human beings and that they have the right to express themselves and think what they want to.
17.
Raif Badawi's writings were tolerated by the relatively liberal King Abdullah, but not by the religious police who arrested him in late 2007.
18.
For many hours Raif Badawi was interrogated regarding his activities, but was eventually released with no charges made against him.
19.
Raif Badawi was prevented from leaving Saudi Arabia, and both his and his wife's bank accounts were frozen in 2009.
20.
However, Raif Badawi was confirmed to be a Muslim after reciting the Shahada in court, and stated that people should have the right to choose their faith.
21.
Human Rights Watch stated that Raif Badawi's website had hosted material criticizing "senior religious figures".
22.
On 30 July 2013, Saudi media reported that Raif Badawi had been sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes for founding an Internet forum that "violates Islamic values and propagates liberal thought".
23.
On 1 March 2015, Raif Badawi's wife told reporters that judges in Saudi Arabia's criminal court wanted to retry him for apostasy, and that if found guilty he would be sentenced to death.
24.
Raif Badawi fled to Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada, with their three children.
25.
Raif Badawi's lawyer Waleed Abulkhair was imprisoned after setting up Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, a Saudi human rights organization.
26.
Raif Badawi is charged with "setting up an unlicensed organization" and "breaking allegiance with the ruler".
27.
On 9 January 2015, Raif Badawi received 50 lashes before hundreds of spectators in front of a Jeddah mosque, the first in a total of 1,000 lashes to be administered over twenty weeks.
28.
Raif Badawi was to receive the punishment 50 lashes at a time every Friday for 20 weeks until the sentence was complete.
29.
The hashtag "JeSuisRaif Badawi", echoing Je suis Charlie, trended in January 2015.
30.
Raif Badawi was again a trending topic on Twitter a week later and his wife told the BBC that the family suffered "perpetual anxiety".
31.
Sixty-seven members of the United States Congress sent a bipartisan letter to the King of Saudi Arabia on 3 March 2015, calling for the release of all prisoners of conscience, including Raif Badawi and Waleed Abu Al-Khair.
32.
The Saudi Supreme Court upheld the sentence and there were fears Raif Badawi could be flogged again after Friday prayers on 12 June 2015.
33.
The Independent reported in October 2016 that sources close to Raif Badawi's family feared flogging could restart imminently, at any time during the year.
34.
On 11 March 2022, his family reported that Raif Badawi was released from prison, but not allowed to leave the country.
35.
Raif Badawi met his wife, Ensaf Haidar, accidentally when Badawi misdialed Haidar.
36.
Raif Badawi called back Haidar repeatedly to her anger because of her "lovely voice", and Haidar repeatedly declined out of fear for family honour.
37.
Raif Badawi married Ensaf Haidar in 2002 in Saudi Arabia, with Haidar giving birth in 2003 at the Jeddah Public Hospital to their first child, Najwa bint Raif Badawi, in his absence.
38.
Raif Badawi was the founder and head of a women's education system until he sold it following his dissidence.
39.
Raif Badawi is Muslim and has made Umrah with his three children.
40.
Raif Badawi's wife denied allegations of apostasy and said in a NPR interview that he is a "good Muslim" and promoted a "live and let live philosophy".