Editor's note: This sounds like something that the IARDC would think up for lawyers who blog.  Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com

Saudi blogger to be publicly flogged for insulting Islam

By AYA BATRAWY45 minutes ago

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A Saudi blogger who was sentenced last May to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes will be publicly flogged for the first time after Friday prayers outside a mosque in the Red Sea coastal city of Jiddah, a person close to his case said Thursday.

Raif Baddawi was sentenced on charges related to accusations that he insulted Islam on a liberal online forum he had created. He was also ordered by the Jiddah Criminal Court to pay a fine of 1 million Saudi riyals, or about $266,000.

Rights groups and activists say his case is part of a wider clampdown on dissent throughout the kingdom. Officials have increasingly blunted calls for reforms since the region's 2011 Arab Spring upheaval.

Badawi has been held since mid-2012, and his Free Saudi Liberals website is now closed. The case has drawn condemnation from rights groups.

He called from prison and informed his family of the flogging, due Friday, said a person close to the case. The person, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisal, said Badawi was "being used as an example for others to see."

Badawi's lawyer Waleed Abul-Khair was sentenced in July to 15 years imprisonment and barred from traveling for another 15 years after being found guilty by an anti-terrorism court of "undermining the regime and officials," ''inciting public opinion" and "insulting the judiciary."

London-based rights group Amnesty International has said that Badawi is to receive 50 lashes once a week for 20 weeks.

"It is horrifying to think that such a vicious and cruel punishment should be imposed on someone who is guilty of nothing more than daring to create a public forum for discussion and peacefully exercising the right to freedom of expression," said Philip Luther, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa director.

Badawi was originally sentenced in 2013 to seven years in prison and 600 lashes in relation to the charges, but after an appeal, the judge stiffened the punishment. Following his arrest, his wife and children left the kingdom for Canada.

 

Saudi women drivers sent to 'terrorism' court: activists

Editor's note: This Shark believes that; If it looks like a "Terrorism Court"; smells like a "Terrorism Court"; feels like a "Terrorism Court";  it is the Probate Court of Cook County! Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com

Saudi women drivers sent to 'terrorism' court: activists

December 25, 2014 6:16 AM

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An image grab taken from a video uploaded by Saudi activists on YouTube on October 26, 2013 allegedly shows a fully veiled woman driving in Riyadh during a planned nationwide day of defiance of the ban on women driving (AFP Photo/Dsk)

 

Riyadh (AFP) - Two women's rights campaigners detained in Saudi Arabia have been transferred to a special tribunal for "terrorism", activists said on Thursday after the women appeared in court.

The ruling came at a hearing in Al-Ahsa, in the kingdom's Eastern Province, according to the activists who declined to be named.
Loujain Hathloul has been detained since December 1 after she tried to drive into the kingdom from neighbouring United Arab Emirates in defiance of a ban.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world which does not allow women to drive.
Maysaa Alamoudi, a UAE-based Saudi journalist, arrived at the border to support Hathloul and was also arrested.
Activists did not provide full details of the allegations against the pair but said investigations appeared to focus on the women's social media activities rather than their driving.
"They will transfer her case to the terrorism court," said an activist familiar with Hathloul's case, adding that her lawyer plans to appeal.
A second activist confirmed that Alamoudi's case was also being moved to the specialist tribunal.
Hathloul has 228,000 followers on Twitter.
Before her arrest she tweeted, sometimes with humour, details of the 24 hours she spent waiting to cross into Saudi Arabia after border officers stopped her.
Alamoudi has 131,000 followers and has also hosted a programme on YouTube discussing the driving ban.
In early December Saudi authorities blocked the website of a regional human rights group which reported the women's case.

Reporters Without Borders, a watchdog, this year named Saudi Arabia as one of 19 countries where government agencies are "enemies of the Internet" for their censorship and surveillance.

In October, dozens of women posted images online of themselves behind the wheel as part of an online campaign supporting the right to drive.

In response, the Ministry of Interior said it would "strictly implement" measures against anyone undermining "the social cohesion".

Activists say women's driving is not technically illegal but that the ban is linked to tradition and custom in the conservative kingdom.