The second public flogging of a Saudi human rights campaigner has been postponed on medical grounds, to allow him to heal before suffering hundreds of lashes over the coming months.
Amnesty International has denounced the temporary reprieve as "macabre and outrageous, " and has criticised UK ministers for their muted response to the plight of Raif Badawi.
The first instalment of 50 of the 1,000 lashes was administered on Friday of last week. It had been ordered last year by a Saudi court as part of the sentence of the blogger for "insulting Islam" by setting up the Saudi Arabian Liberals website.
The second 50 was due to be carried out in Jeddah after this week's Friday prayers.
According to Amnesty, Badawi was removed from his jail cell this morning and taken to the prison clinic for a medical check-up before the latest round of flogging. The doctor concluded that the wounds had not yet healed properly and that Mr Badawi would not be able to withstand another bout of lashes at this time.
He recommended that the flogging should be postponed until next week.
Amnesty's Said Boumedouha said:
"Not only does this postponement on health grounds expose the utter brutality of this punishment, it underlines its outrageous inhumanity. The notion that Raif Badawi must be allowed to heal so that he can suffer this cruel punishment again and again is macabre and outrageous. Flogging should not be carried out under any circumstances. Flogging is prohibited under international law along with other forms of corporal punishment."
The Foreign Office has said the UK government condemns the use of cruel and degrading punishment in all circumstances.
The Saudi Arabian Embassy in London has declined to comment.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article