MONTREAL — Amnesty International Canada said Friday’s scheduled flogging of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi has been postponed for medical reasons.
Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for a blog criticizing Saudi Arabia’s clerics.
The first 50 of those lashes were delivered last week and he was expected to receive 50 more every week for the next 19 weeks.
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Amnesty said it spoke earlier this week with Badawi, who said he would be unable to withstand another 50 lashes.
The group said it was determined after a medical checkup Friday that his wounds had not healed sufficiently and that a doctor suggested the flogging be postponed until next week.
Badawi is not a Canadian citizen but his wife fled Saudi Arabia in 2012 with their two daughters before settling in Sherbrooke, Que., in 2013.
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“The notion that Raif Badawi must be allowed to heal so that he can suffer this cruel punishment again and again is macabre and outrageous,” Said Boumedouha, Amnesty’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement.
“Flogging should not be carried out under any circumstances.”
The postponement came as NDP Leader Tom Mulcair called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to speak out in Badawi’s case.
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Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said this week Canada has expressed its opposition to the punishment to Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Ottawa.
Mulcair’s letter to Harper urged the prime minister to step in and call for Badawi’s immediate release.
“Canada must make every effort to guarantee his release, allow him to return home to his family, and to prevent him from being subjected to this horrible punishment simply for having expressed his opinion.”
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