Imprisoned blogger Raif Badawi, whose public flogging in the kingdom last year generated a global outcry, now risks a new round of lashes, a co-founder of a Canadian foundation advocating his release said on Tuesday.
Evelyne Abitbol, who founded the Raif Badawi Foundation with Badawi’s wife, said a “reliable source” in Saudi Arabia claims he faces a new flogging after being sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and 1,000 lashes in 2014 for breaking the kingdom’s technology laws and insulting Islam.
Saudi embassy officials in Ottawa and Saudi government officials in Riyadh were not immediately available for comment.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm the source’s claims.
Abitbol declined to name the source but said it was the same person who had alerted Badawi’s wife, Ensaf Haidar, in 2015 before he received his first 50 lashes, the only part of the flogging that was reportedly administered.
The source did not indicate when the flogging would take place.