A Princeton professor has volunteered to take 100 lashes of a 1,000-lash punishment imposed on a Saudi blogger convicted of insulting Islam.
Robert P. George, a Princeton professor and vice chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, sent his request to the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. on behalf of Raif Badawi. Five other religious freedom advocates also signed the letter.
“If your government will not remit the punishment of Raif Badawi, we respectfully ask that you permit each of us to take 100 of the lashes that would be given to him. We would rather share in his victimization than stand by and watch him being cruelly tortured. If your government does not see fit to stop this from happening, we are prepared to present ourselves to receive our share of Mr. Badawi’s unjust punishment,” the letter, signed Jan. 20, said.
Mr. Badawi’s first 50 lashes were given on Jan. 9, but additional punishment was postponed so that his wounds could heal, Fox News reported Thursday. He was arrested in 2012 while blogging for the the now-defunct Liberal Saudi Network. Although he was cleared of apostasy charges, which would have resulted in a death sentence, he could not escape a cybercrime conviction on insulting Islam.
In addition to the 1,000 lashings, Mr. Badawi has been ordered to pay a fine of roughly $266,000.
Amnesty International has called his punishment, which was partially carried out in the city of Jeddah, “a vicious act of cruelty which is prohibited under international law.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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