Jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi’s Quebec family hopes for imminent release

The Quebec family of Saudi blogger and father of three, Raif Badawi, says his release may be imminent, a decade after he was imprisoned in Saudi Arabia – sentenced to a 10-year prison term and 1,000 lashes in 2012 after being accused of promoting liberal views of Islam.

He was fined $340,000 and given the first 50 lashes in public in 2015, but was spared from the rest after international condemnation.

“My father lived like a nightmare,” says Tirad Raif Badawi, the human rights blogger’s 17-year-old son. “He does not have a possibility of doing anything in prison. He’s between four walls and he’s going to need to [get] out.”

Raif Badawi has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabi for over a decade. Sentenced to 1,000 lashes in 2012, after being accused of promoting liberal views of Islam. He was fined $340,000 and given the first 50 lashes in public in 2015, but was spared from the rest after international condemnation.

His official sentence was up on Feb. 28, but has been pushed to early March, meaning his release could be imminent.

Irwin Cotler, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada from 2003 to 2006 and the International Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, has been the international legal counsel for Raif and his family for the last eight years.

“Our hope at this point is after having been in effect, unjustly imprisoned for ten years, he will now be permitted to be reunited with his wife and children who have been deprived of his presence now for ten years,” Cotler says.

“It’s very hard all these years without my father,” says Tirad. “They are the longest years of my life and I never thought in my mind we’re going to be apart, separated for this time.”

#WATCH: “It’s very hard all these years without my father,” says Terad @raif_badawi, whose father Raif has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for over a decade. Terad says his dad’s release is imminent and hopes to reunite soon.

READ: https://t.co/bvHw7Jb526 pic.twitter.com/mJ9TWKuaHe

— Alyssia (@rubertuccinews) March 3, 2022

On Monday, the Bloc Quebecois bill asking the Canadian government to grant him citizenship was adopted in the House of Commons unanimously.

Adoptée! Très heureux que la chambre réitère unanimement cette demande du @BlocQuebecois faite pour la première fois le 27-01-2021. Les prochaines heures seront déterminantes pour @raif_badawi. #polcan pic.twitter.com/FD17ZHTK7W

— Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (@Alduceppe) February 28, 2022

“To get a unanimous consent in both houses of the parliament, the Minister has the discretion to confer that citizenship, and we hope that will be forthcoming,” Cotler says.

“This is the next step we have to take, for him to come back here with us,” says Tirad.

Raif is now closer to reuniting with his family who live in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, in Sherbrooke, about 160 kilometers southeast of Montreal

Tirad says that can’t come fast enough.

“First thing I want to do, [is hug] and speak with him and go eat out,” he says.

But it’s up to the Saudi authorities whether they’ll waive the ten-year travel ban they imposed on Raif following his release.

“I would expect that Saudi Arabia would do this not only because it’s the just thing to do, but frankly, it’s in their self-interest to do so,” Cotler says. “In the last few days alone, they have been called upon by European parliamentarians, by senators and congress people from the U.S.”

Right now, Raif’s legal counsel and his family is prioritizing his release, with a facilitation to Canada, where the hope is he could officially become a citizen.

Tirad with a message to the Trudeau government: “please, it’s now the time to act for my father.”