Saudi blogger found guilty of insulting Islam to be flogged in public


A blogger from Saudi Arabia found guilty last year of insulting Islam on a website he started will be publicly flogged in Jeddah on Friday, a source told The Associated Press.
Raif Badawi, the creator of the now-closed website Free Saudi Liberals, was ordered to pay $266,000 in fines and will receive 50 lashes a week for 20 weeks, Amnesty International said. Badawi was originally sentenced to 600 lashes and seven years in prison, but his sentence was increased after he filed an appeal.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Badawi was being punished for "exercising his rights to freedom of expression and religion," and said the United States "calls on Saudi authorities to cancel this brutal punishment."
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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