Saudi blogger Raif Badawi freed from prison after a decade, wife says

Blogger and activist Raif Badawi's family and friends were all smiles, tears and emotion on Friday in Sherbrooke, Que. as they celebrated his release after a decade in a Saudi prison.

Badawi's wife Ensaf Haidar, who lives with the couple's three children in Sherbrooke, Que., tweeted the news on Friday, also taking part in a vigil for her husband at Sherbrooke's City Hall.

"It's good news... I am always tearful with joy. It's been a long journey for me. It's a relief. I'm happy. I'm very happy," she said.

Badawi's daughter Najwa said it was her father who called to tell the family he was released, adding that her mother was overjoyed when she shared the news.

"She said, 'He's out!' We were jumping everywhere and were really happy," she said.

Najwa was nine when her father was imprisoned and she hasn't seen him since.

"We didn't really know how to react because we had been waiting for this for a really long time, but we were really happy," she said. "I really look forward to holding him and squeezing him and smelling him. I almost don't remember him. I'm 18, so a big chunk of life."

Haidar said she can't wait to speak to her husband in person, and will continue to hold vigils until she is with Raif.

"We demanded that Raif be freed, now we demand that Raif be in Sherbrooke," she said.

On Friday, she was full of emotions.

"After 11 years, yes. There are a lot of emotions, a lot of joy," she said. "The love is always full." 

YEARS OF CALLS FOR RELEASE

His supporters and family had been calling for Badawi's release since his sentence expired on Feb. 28. A spokesperson for the family said it had no other comment and that it isn't clear what sentence conditions remain for him.

Last month, Montreal-based human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler, who represents Badawi internationally, said the release from prison had been expected sometime in March.

Cotler, a former federal justice minister and founder of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, had warned that while his prison sentence was at an end, Badawi still faced a 10-year travel ban, a media ban and a punitive fine that was handed down at the time of sentencing.

"We're talking about a kind of prison without walls where he's deprived of travel for the next 10 years," Cotler said at the time. "That would be continuing the punishment outside of prison that he was having inside prison -- the severe pain of being deprived of being with his wife and children."

Badawi was jailed in 2012 and sentenced in 2014 to 10 years in prison, 1,000 lashes and a fine of one million Saudi riyal -- about $340,000 -- for criticizing the country's clerics in his writings.

Badawi's sentence has drawn widespread international condemnation, and numerous organizations, governments and advocacy groups have called for his release over the years.

BILL ASKING FOR CANADIAN CITIZENSHIP

Bloc Quebecois MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe tabled a bill in the House of Commons in February asking the Canadian government to grant Raif Badawi citizenship. 

The bill was adopted, but he has not been granted citizenship as of yet.

The recent legislation was similar to another Bloc motion in 2021 that was also passed unanimously in favour of the immigration minister using his powers to grant Badawi citizenship.

-- With files from Sidhartha Banerjee of The Canadian Press