Amnesty International has confirmed that the case of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi was transferred to the criminal courts, but what this transfer means for his scheduled flogging on Friday remains unclear.
Badawi, 32, was arrested in 2012 after writing articles critical of Saudi Arabia's clerics on his blog. He was found guilty of breaking the country's technology laws and insulting Islamic religious figures through the site. The blog since has been shut down.
Badawi’s wife, Ensaf Haidar, and their three children came to Canada in 2013; they were granted asylum after facing persecution in the Arab world. They now live in Sherbrooke, and hope for Bawadi to join them.
The blogger received his first 50 lashings from his sentence on Jan. 9, 2015, out of a total 1,000 to be doled out every week. Badawi was exempt from the last three weekly floggings for medical reasons.
Last Friday however, his flogging was postponed without a medical evaluation, as the procedure demands, so no one is certain what may happen in the next few days.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International officials remain cautious about his case being transferred to the criminal courts. Last time his case was seen there, his sentence increased from 600 lashings to 1,000 and from 7 years in prison to 10 years.
In December 2014, King Abdullah, who died in January, asked the Saudi Supreme Court to look into Badawi’s situation. The Supreme Court was the tribunal that transferred his case to the criminal courts.
Support for Badawi's freedom has been growing locally with vigils and protests. Amnesty International has been supporting the blogger's family to help free Badawi and produced a video posted to YouTube in which Badawi's son, Doudi, reads a letter he wrote to his dad:
