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Supporters fear for the life of Raif Badawi, a 30-year-old Saudi Arabian blogger who endured 50 lashes by Saudi authorities as worshippers gathered in front of a mosque in Jeddah watched on Friday morning, human rights groups reported.

Badawi, whose wife and three young children have been living in Sherbrooke under political asylum for over a year, was convicted last May of insulting Islam in his blog, and sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes. Fifty lashes are to be administered every Friday over the next 20 weeks, after morning prayers at the al-Jafali mosque in Jeddah.

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“We don’t think he can survive this,” said a tearful Anne Sainte-Marie, a Montreal spokesperson for Amnistie internationale Canada francophone, one of the groups working to free Badawi.

Photo by Alishba Zarmeen

Sainte-Marie has become a close friend of Badawi’s wife, Ensaf Haidar, since she and her children were granted political asylum in Quebec in the fall of 2013. Haidar is taking French lessons, and the children — 10-year-old Terad, eight-year-old Najwa and seven-year-old Miriam — are in school in Sherbrooke.

Sainte-Marie said Haidar has tried to protect her children from the details of their father’s ordeal, and kept them home from school on Friday. But this discretion may no longer be possible as the public campaign to free him broadens.