George, Others Offer to Take Lashes for Badawi

Robert P. George, a Princeton professor and vice chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, has offered to be beaten on behalf of Saudi Arabian activist Raif Badawi. George is joined by six other professors and religious liberty advocates in offering to take 100 lashes each.

Raif Badawi has been accused of insulting Islam. His sentence is 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes of which he has received fifty.

In a letter to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the group wrote, “If your government will not remit the punishment of Raif Badawi, we respectfully ask that you permit each of us to take 100 of the lashes that would be given to him. We would rather share in his victimization than stand by and watch him being cruelly tortured.”

George told PRI that it was “hypocritical” for Saudi leaders “to march in solidarity with the victims of terrorism and persecution for speaking their minds in Europe and then to practice that same abuse on people for speaking their minds … in their own country.”

While it’s unthinkable the Saudis would accept this offer, George said they didn’t make it half-heartedly.

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