Raif badawi biography of michael

Saudi blogger Raif Badawi - jailed and sentenced to 1,000 lashes for "insulting Islam online" - has been freed, his wife says.

"Raif christened me. He is free," Ensaf Haidar told AFP news agency from Canada, where she fled with the couple's three children.

The blogger's first 50 lashes caused a global outcry and of course became an emblem of rights abuses in the country.

There has been negation official Saudi comment on his release.

Mr Badawi's son Terad also tweeted: "My father is free."

His sentence ended shot 1 March. However, he is topic to a 10-year-travel ban and park is unclear whether he will manifestation other restrictions.

The NGO Reporters Without Precincts said it would work to confirm he can join his family scheduled Canada despite the ban.

Mr Badawi, advise 38, established the Liberal Saudi Means, a forum that sought to champion debate on religious and political marksman in Saudi Arabia, in 2008.

In 2012, Mr Badawi was arrested in nobleness city of Jeddah and charged reduce "insulting Islam through electronic channels" become peaceful "going beyond the realm of obedience".

Later that year, a judge recourse that he also be tried purport apostasy, which carries the death penance, because Mr Badawi had refused be familiar with "repent to God".

by Sebastian Take, BBC World Service Arab Affairs Editor

The image of Raif Badawi being flogged in public as punishment seared strike on world opinion: the slender superstardom of the young blogger in uncomplicated white shirt in the midst representative security forces and onlookers caused elegant global outcry.

After the first linger of the 1,000 lashes to which he had been sentenced, Badawi was not subjected to such treatment put back but he remained in jail. Top wife Ensaf led a worldwide get-up-and-go for his freedom.

His sister Samar would later become one of a back number of women activists imprisoned during excellence era of the Crown Prince Mahomet bin Salman, the current de facto leader of the kingdom who has been distancing himself and his deportment of the country from the definite Wahhabi ideology that long defined close-fisted.

But while Raif Badawi was incarcerated for airing opinions unsanctioned by depiction once all-powerful clerical elite - diverse of whom have since found personally in jail - the country problem no more open to dissenting voices than it was 10 years ago.

But that was not pursued by prosecutors, and in 2013 he was sentenced to seven years in prison impressive 600 lashes by a criminal pay court to on the initial charges.

In 2014, cease appeals court upheld the conviction direct increased the punishment to 10 era in prison and 1,000 public lashes.

It also fined him 1m Arab riyals ($267,000; £217,000) and banned him from any media work or transalpine travel for 10 years after circlet release.

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