Story highlights Sarah Leah Whitson: Blogger's flogging most recent example of Saudi's extreme punishment

She says on jihad violence, easy to connect dots to Saudi Arabia, region's model for repression

Whitson: U.S. slammed flogging by its ally, but is silent on routine, grotesque abuses of Saudi citizens

Editor's note: Sarah Leah Whitson is the director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch. Follow on Twitter @sarahleah1. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) The killings of 12 journalists and others at Charlie Hebdo in Paris has led many to wonder about the role of Islam in fueling vicious attacks on civilians in the name of the religion.

Policymakers wring their hands about how to curtail the spread of extremist religious ideologies that terrorize Western targets, but also Muslims and non-Muslim minorities in the Middle East, who are extremism's primary victims.

Where are some Muslims getting the idea that violence against journalists who offend them is OK? Why do they see beheadings as a fitting punishment?

Sarah Leah Whitson

A good place to look for answers would be to examine Saudi Arabia's policies of intolerance and extremism. King Abdullah, as the protector of Islam's most sacred religious sites and leader of Saudi Arabia, is widely considered an important role model for Muslims around the world. So it should not come as a surprise that many Muslims take their cues from the country on the prohibitions and punishments they consider appropriate to inflict on those who challenge or disagree with their interpretations of Islam.

Saudi Arabia gave a good indication of its position on appropriate punishments last Friday, when i t carried out Round 1 of a public flogging -- 50 lashes -- against Raif Badawi, a young blogger, in front of the al-Jafali mosque in Jeddah. A Saudi court had fined Badawi and sentenced him in 2014 to 1,000 lashes over 20 sessions and to 10 years in prison for the crime of "insulting Islam" -- in part for setting up a liberal website to debate various topics, including religion.