Update4: (13.01.2015) Raif has been lashed last Friday 50 times, the same is planned for the next 19 Fridays for the other 950 lashes!!

Update3 Raif Badawi has been sentenced to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison! Help him!

Update2: (30.12.2013): Raif Badawi may face death penalty for apostasy

Update1: 600 LASHES and 7 years prison for Raif Badawi, we have to stop implementing this court decision!!

Raef Badawi, a Saudi who is one of the establishers of the "Liberal Saudi Network", which angered Ultra-orthodox clerics of Saudi Arabia and has been sentenced to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison.

Originally, he was expected to be sentenced to death for apostasy, for instance, as published by AFP:

“A Saudi court on Monday referred a rights activist to a higher court for alleged apostasy, a charge that could lead to the death penalty in the ultra-conservative kingdom, activists said.

A judge at a lower court referred Raef Badawi to a higher court, declaring that he "could not give a verdict in a case of apostasy," a rights activist told AFP. Apostasy means renunciation of a religious faith.

Badawi, who was arrested a June in the Red Sea city of Jeddah for unknown reasons, is a co-founder of the Saudi Liberal Network with female rights activist Suad al-Shammari and others.”

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/07/30/saudi-arabia-600-lashes-7-years-activist

Recent news links:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/saudi-arabia-court-upholds-raif-badawis-sentence-ten-years-prison-1000-lashes-1463886



German: http://www.amnesty.de/urgent-action/ua-003-2013-5/haft-und-pruegelstrafe-bestaetigt

The sentence was 600 lashes and 7 years in prison, then increased to 1000 lashes and 10 years, the appeal was refused and the sentence has been confirmed.

We demand that Saudi Arabia free and safeguard Raef Badawy and stop threatening people merely for expressing nonorthodox views on Islam or religion in general, because without freedom of speech, one can not counter the dangerous beliefs of extremist Islam that leads ultimately to terrorism and threatens the safety of all people around the world.