Raif Badawi wins EU’s Sakharov Prize 2015

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✷ Raif Badawi, the Saudi blogger and activist who has been sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in jail for insulting Islam and for cyber crime has been selected for European Union's Sakharov prize for human rights and freedom of thought for the year 2015. This month in London, he was given the International Writer of Courage award and was co-recipient of the PEN Pinter Prize.

✷ Raif Badawi, author of the website Free Saudi Liberals was given 10 years in jail and 1000 strikes. The strikes can only be given 50 at a time. Then after a recovery 50 more. Raif's beautiful family including 3 kids escaped Saudi Arabia after death threats. They currently reside in Canada and miss him terribly.

✷ A Jeddah court handed Badawi his sentence in 2012 after he criticized the Saudi clergy in a blog and called for changes in the way religion is practiced in Saudi Arabia.

✷ Saudi Arabia follows strict Wahhabi form of Islam. It does not permit the public worship of other faiths or allow them to maintain places of worship inside the country.In a new law last year, it included atheism as a terrorist offence.

About the Prize :-

✷ The Sakharov Prize, officially known as the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought has been named after Soviet scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, was established in December 1988 by the European Parliament as a means to honour individuals and groups of people who have dedicated their lives to the defense of human rights and freedom of thought.

✷ A shortlist of nominees is drawn up by the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Development, with the winner announced in October.The prize is accompanied by a monetary award of 50,000 Euros.

✷ The first prize was awarded jointly to South African Nelson Mandela and Russian Anatoly Marchenko. Three Sakharov laureates were subsequently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize: Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Malala Yousafzai.