Saudi Arabia court increases sentence for editor behind liberal website

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/07/saudi-arabia-court-editor-liberal-website

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A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced the editor of an internet forum he founded to discuss the role of religion in the country to 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes, according to reports in the Saudi media.

Raif Badawi, who started the Free Saudi Liberals website, was originally sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes in July last year, but an appeals court overturned the sentence and ordered a retrial.

Apart from imposing a stiffer sentence on Badawi in his retrial, the judge at the criminal court in Jeddah also fined him 1m riyals (£160,000). Badawi's website has been closed since his first trial.

His lawyers said the sentence was too harsh, although the prosecutor had demanded a harsher penalty, the news website Sabq reported. The ruling is subject to appeal.

The prosecution had demanded that Badawi be tried for apostasy, a charge that carries the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. The judge in last year's trial had dismissed the apostasy charges.

Badawi was arrested in June 2012 and charged with cyber crime and disobeying his father.

His website included articles that were critical of senior religious figures such as Saudi Arabia's grand mufti, according to Human Rights Watch.

In a separate ruling on Tuesday, the court also convicted the administrator of a website on charges of supporting internet forums hostile to the state and which promoted demonstrations, Sabq reported. It said he was sentenced to six years in jail and a 50,000 riyal (£7,860) fine.

Sabq said another Saudi was sentenced to five years in jail for publishing a column by a prominent Shia Muslim cleric on his website.

Rattled by the uprisings that have destabilised the Middle East, Riyadh has intensified a crackdown on domestic dissent with arrests and prosecutions.

In April, prominent Saudi rights lawyer and activist Waleed Abu al-Khair was detained incommunicado after appearing in court in Riyadh on sedition charges, according to his wife.

Also in April, a Saudi court sentenced an unidentified activist to six years in jail on charges including taking part in illegal demonstrations and organising women's protests.

Another was sentenced to three years in jail for spreading lies against King Abdullah and inciting the public against him.