human rights

A New Delay for Shawkan Zeid

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

UPDATE, February 6, 2016: For a second time, the Egyptian court hearing for Mahmoud Abu Zeid, the photojournalist known as “Shawkan,” has been postponed, this time until March 26. The court cited the same reason it gave for the first postponement in December: that it does not have the space to accommodate the hearing. Because he was arrested in a widespread government crackdown, which was known as the “Rabaa Dispersal,” Shawkan has been included with 737 other individuals. All face similar charges of offenses against public order and national security, violence, murder, attacking security forces and civilians, engaging in armed conflicts, and destroying public facilities.

Multiple sources are reporting today that Shawkan has been moved to a “disciplinary cell,” in other words, solitary confinement. His social media accounts describe a tiny cell, a daily slice of bread, a bucket, no blanket. There is a disgusting irony in placing him in a small cell for any length of time, whether one hour or until March 26, when the reason for the two delays has been lack of space.
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800 Lashes for Ashraf Fayadh

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Earlier today, a court in Abha, Saudi Arabia, announced that it has retracted its November 2015 death sentence for the poet Ashraf Fayadh and exchanged it for a sentence of eight years in prison and 800 lashes with a cane. He must also make a public statement of repentance.

This new sentence appears to switch his conviction from one of apostasy, or renouncing his religion, to one of blasphemy, insulting that religion and its leaders. According to the web site Arabic Literature (in English), the charge of “inappropriate relations with the opposite gender” still stands. These “relations” were photos of Fayadh standing next to women in art galleries at exhibitions he curated. The photos were in his cell phone and on his Instagram account because they were appropriate, not salacious, and not worth noticing. In Saudi Arabia’s strict Wahhabi form of Islam, however, this is inappropriate contact with the opposite gender and worthy of legal remedy.
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Raif Badawi’s Hunger Strike

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

UPDATE, January 28, 2016: Two statements have been published on Raif Badawi’s official Twitter account in the last two hours. (There are embedded below the fold).

One reads, “#RaifBadawi is attempting a strike again for not letting him and 120 other prisoners to use the phone to contact their families.” And the follow-up states, “A call out for the Head of KSA Prisons General: Ibrahim Hamzai to stop the negligence in Dhahban Penitentiary.”

Today is Raif Badawi’s 1344th day in prison for writing. Even in prison, officially silenced, he is not silent. I will update when I receive a second source. The Tweets:
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