LONDON — Raif Badawi, a blogger and activist who has been imprisoned and flogged publicly for criticizing Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment, was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the European Union’s top human rights award, on Thursday.

Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, who announced the award, called Mr. Badawi “an extremely good man, an exemplary man who has had imposed on him one of the most gruesome penalties,” one that “can only really be described as brutal torture.” Mr. Schulz urged the Saudi king to “immediately grant mercy to Mr. Badawi and to free him so that he can accept the prize.”

He added, “In the case of Mr. Badawi, fundamental human rights are not only not being respected, they are being trodden underfoot.”

Mr. Badawi, 31, was arrested in 2012 — on charges that included apostasy, cybercrime and disobeying his father — after he started a website that criticized the Saudi religious establishment. In 2013, he was sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 blows with a cane. The next year, he was resentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 blows with a cane. He was not convicted of apostasy, which carries a death sentence.