Canada is
offering to take in imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, listing him as a
priority immigrant on humanitarian grounds. Badawi is serving a 10-year jail
sentence and is facing 1,000 lashes in the Gulf kingdom.
The
Canadian province of Quebec on Friday cleared the way for Raif Badawi to come
to the country by offering the blogger an immigration selection certificate.
These
certificates are issued "in exceptional circumstances to foreigners in
need of protection," Quebec Immigration Minister Kathleen Weil said.
"His
treatment is outrageous - it's cruel and unusual punishment," Weil said,
in comments carried by state broadcaster CBC and others in Canada.
Courage @raif_badawi et Ensaf Haidar. Tout le Québec est avec vous! http://t.co/D3XfHAZS5v #polqc #assnat
— Kathleen Weil (@Kathleen_Weil) 12 juni 2015
The
certificate could fast-track Badawi's immigration application and any steps to
bring him from Saudi Arabia to Canada.
The
official document will be presented to Badawi's wife, Ensaf Haider, at a
ceremony next week. Haider settled in Sherbrooke, Quebec, with the couple's
three children soon after fleeing Saudi Arabia in 2012. In an interview with
Deutsche Welle last month, Haider said she imagined her family's future in Canada.
Badawi was
imprisoned in 2012, and two years later was sentenced to a decade in jail,
1,000 lashes, and fined 1 million Saudi riyals ($266,600 / 236,730 euros) for
promoting liberal ideas and criticizing Islam online. The 31-year-old received
the first 50 lashes of his sentence - to be delivered in 20 weekly sessions-
outside a mosque in the Red Sea city of Jeddah in January, but subsequent
floggings have been postponed amid international outrage.
Last week
Saudi Arabia's Supreme Court upheld the sentence, meaning the ruling is final
and cannot be overturned without a pardon from the country's King Salman. Human
rights groups, together with Badawi's wife Haider, have called on the Canadian
government to step up efforts to secure the blogger's release.
Quebec's
Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney said Friday that he was hopeful the offer
to help Badawi immigrate to Canada "will allow us to break the logjam and
have a happy ending to this."
No flogging for today; I repeat my appeal to his majesty King Salman to pardon my husband #RaifBadawi and stop his flogging.
— رائف بدوي (@raif_badawi) 12 juni 2015
In a
statement Friday, Saudi Arabia said it would "not tolerate such
outrageous, ridiculous interference in its sovereign justice system."
The
comments echo a letter sent earlier in the week to members of the European
Parliament, in which Saudi authorities expressed "strong displeasure and
disapproval in relation to some media reports" on Badawi.
"Saudi
Arabia was among the first countries to support human rights and respect
international conventions which were in accordance with Sharia," the Saudi
Foreign Ministry said.
Deutsche
Welle awarded Badawi its inaugural Freedom of Expression Award in February.
nm/msh (AFP)
 |
Canadian
Prime Minister Stephen Harper meets with Pope Francis at
the Vatican
on 11 June 2015. Photograph: Adrian Wyld/AP
|
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