London vigil to mark Saudi blogger Raif Badawi's 33rd birthday, his fifth behind bars

On Friday 13 January, from 13:00 to 14:00, a group of human rights organisations will hold a vigil outside the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in London to mark the 33rd birthday of jailed blogger Raif Badawi. This will be the fifth birthday Badawi has spent unjustly jailed, separated by thousands of miles from his wife, Ensaf Haidar, and their children.

Co-founder of the online discussion forum the Liberal Saudi Network, Badawi has been jailed since June 2012. He was convicted of insulting Islam and sentenced to ten years in prison, 1,000 lashes, and a ten-year ban on travelling abroad after the completion of his prison sentence. Saudi authorities brutally administered the first 50 lashes against Badawi in January 2015.

Badawi is one of at least ten journalists and citizen journalists currently behind bars in Saudi Arabia (including Badawi’s own lawyer, human rights defender Waleed Abu Al Khair), which is ranked 165th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index.

Date: Friday 13 January from 13:00 to 14:00

Location: Outside the Embassy of Saudi Arabia, 30 Charles Street, W1J 5DZ, London (NB Activists will meet at the entrance on Curzon Street)

Sponsoring NGOs: English PEN, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, Index on Censorship, the Jimmy Wales Foundation, Little, Brown, Peter Tatchell Foundation, One Law for All, Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, Bread and Roses, and Equal Rights Now – Movement for Women’s Liberation in Iran

For additional information, please visit the English PEN website.

Contact

Cat Lucas at English PEN
cat@englishpen.org or +44 (0)7757 300703

Rebecca Vincent at Reporters Without Borders
rvincent@rsf.org or +44 (0)7583 137751