Saudi website editor could
face death for apostasy-rights group
RIYADH | Sat Dec 22, 2012
3:54pm EST
(Reuters) - The editor of
a Saudi Arabian website could be sentenced to death after a judge cited him for
apostasy and moved his case to a higher court, the monitoring group Human
Rights Watch said on Saturday.
Raif Badawi, who started
the Free Saudi Liberals website to discuss the role of religion in Saudi
Arabia, was arrested in June, Human Rights Watch said.
Badawi had initially been
charged with the less serious offence of insulting Islam through electronic
channels, but at a December 17 hearing a judge referred him to a more senior
court and recommended he be tried for apostasy, the monitoring group said.
Apostasy, the act of
changing religious affiliation, carries an automatic death sentence in Saudi
Arabia, along with crimes including blasphemy.
Badawi's website included
articles that were critical of senior religious figures, the monitoring group
said.
A spokesman for Saudi
Arabia's Justice Ministry was not available to comment.
The world's top oil
exporter follows the strict Wahhabi school of Islam and applies Islamic law, or
sharia.
Judges base their
decisions on their own interpretation of religious law rather than on a written
legal code or on precedent.
King Abdullah, Saudi
Arabia's ruler, has pushed for reforms to the legal system, including improved
training for judges and the introduction of precedent to standardize verdicts
and make courts more transparent.
However, Saudi lawyers say
that conservatives in the Justice Ministry and the judiciary have resisted
implementing many of the changes that he announced in 2007. (Reporting By Angus
McDowall; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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