Saudi Arabia

Speak Out for Ashraf Fayadh

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

In February 2016, a court in Abha, Saudi Arabia, announced that it had 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 switched his conviction from one of apostasy, or renouncing his religion, to one of blasphemy, insulting that religion and its leaders.

Today, December 10, International Human Rights Day, a date celebrated by the United Nations and human rights organizations for decades. Artists and activists around the world are speaking out on behalf of Ashraf Fayadh by creating art, writing essays, joining a Tweetstorm, recording podcasts, and many other ways of showing support. The website “Arabic Literature (in English)” published a list of ten suggestions in a July post: “Make Noise & Beauty on July 28, a Day of Creativity for Ashraf Fayadh.” If you participate, please use the hashtag #FreeAshraf. Everything that follows below is my small contribution.
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One Year Ago: A Public Torture

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Raymond Johansen allowed himself to be tortured one year ago today, August 16, 2015, in solidarity with Saudi writer Raif Badawi.

Johansen was hit 50 times by a friend, Tony Clenaghan, with a thin cane, a switch, in Trafalgar Square, where corporal punishments once upon a time were held in public and frequently, but not since the 1830s. Johansen had difficulty walking afterward and even expressed confusion as to where he was upon speaking with a reporter. (Video below.)

When a caning is administered it sometimes does not look as severe as one thinks a beating would look; even one of the words we employ minimizes the severity: “lashes.” In writing about the Saudi Arabian writer Raif Badawi, who was sentenced by Saudi Arabia in 2014 to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison, I have run into the shallow poverty of available analogies. All language is analogy, metaphor, and I have wanted the words to be sufficient to convey the pain of judicial corporal punishment, but they do not. They can not. Raymond Johansen’s action last year pumped life into the analogies, however.
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Speculation About Saudi Plans

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Is Ali al-Nimr About to Be Executed?

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There are two things about Ali Mohammed al-Nimr that we know today (December 6, 2016), and they are the same two sad, maddening things that we know about Ali al-Nimr every day: He remains in prison and he is awaiting his fate. Anything else, everything else, is speculation. Today, speculation about Ali al-Nimr is drowning out the few things we actually know.

Ali al-Nimr is the young Saudi protester who faces a sentence of death by beheading followed by a posthumous crucifixion (the public display of his dead body), and we know one other solidly reported thing about him today: he phoned home this morning.
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