Do you know Raif Badawy?

One year ago today I changed my Facebook profile to Saudi Arabian blogger Raif Badawy.

Do you know Raif Badawy? by A Crafty Arab

I first read about Raif while I was doing research on how to talk my children about Charlie Hebdo.

Raif had been sentenced to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison for criticizing Islamic clerics. There is a petition to free him on Change.com.  

Amnesty International has also set up petitions to return this family man back to his home.
 
I decided the least I could do was change my profile photo to his photo and tell as many people as possible about him.

While I did not agree with what Raif wrote on his blog, I felt that Saudi Arabia was displaying pure hypocrisy to send a representative to march in the Paris rally awash with pencils, in support of a bigoted newspaper that published offensive cartoons, while sentencing one of their own for putting his thoughts down.

As a blogger, I needed to do something for him in solidarity.

The more groups I joined, the more friends I added, the more I talked about him. Online, in person, everywhere.

I'm going to take a little break from his photo on Facebook to switch over to my mommy duties for the next few weeks.

I'm posting Raif's photo here until I switch back to keep the support going. Please help by signing both petitions and sharing them with friends.