Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, President of the Lantos Foundation, has joined with other prominent religious freedom advocates in calling on Saudi Arabia to cancel the sentence of 1,000 lashes that has been imposed on liberal blogger Raif Badawi. The advocates are offering to each take 100 of the lashes to which Badawi has been sentenced if the Saudi government refuses to cancel his punishment. The signatories of the letter include: Professor Robert George of Princeton University, Mary Ann Glendon, former Ambassador to the Holy See; Professor Daniel Mark of Villanova University; Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy; Eric Schwartz, Dean of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota; and Hannah Rosenthal, CEO of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.
In a letter sent today to the Saudi embassy they cite the “grave injustice” of his sentence and write, “We would rather share in his victimization than stand by and watch him being cruelly tortured.”
The Lantos Foundation and these individuals join a powerful chorus of voices including leading US Senators, Amnesty International, the US State Department, and others in condemning Saudi Arabia’s action in this case as barbaric.