Jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi has won the European Union's prestigious Sakharov Prize for human rights and freedom of thoughts, the European Parliament (EP) announced Thursday.
"The conference of Presidents decided that the Sakharov Prize will go to Saudi blogger Raif Badawi," the EP President Martin Schulz said in a statement.
Thirty-one-year-old Badawi, the founder of the Liberal Saudi Network, was arrested in 2012 for insulting Islam and Muslim clerics, as HNGN previously reported. He was later sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes.
"This man, who is an extremely good man and an exemplary good man, has had imposed on him one of the most gruesome penalties that exist in this country which can only be described as brutal torture. I call on King of Saudi Arabia to stop the execution of this sentence, to release Mr Badawi, to allow him to back to his wife and to allow him to travel here for the December session to receive this prize," said Schulz.
Badawi received the first 50 lashes on Jan. 9 this year at a public square in front of hundreds of people, according to VOA News.
His wife Ensaf Haidar, who lives in Canada with the couple's three children, welcomed the award, saying that the award is a message of hope for her husband.
"I thank the European Parliament. I am very happy about this award. It is a message of hope and courage for him," she told AFP. "I hope that this prize is going to help advance" Badawi's cause and allow him to rejoin his family, she added.
