Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Imprisoned Raif Badawi honoured with PEN Pinter prize

Raif Badawi who was sentenced with 1000 lashes in 2014 with 10 years of prison and fined more than $250,000 has honoured as the co-winner of PEN Printer Prize. He shared prize with British poet and literary critic James Fenton (former Oxford University professor).
  • Badawi also named as the 2015 International Writer of Courage Award.
  • Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales accepted the award on the behalf of Badawi.
  • Badawi was arrested in 2012 on the charge of setting up a blog called the Saudi Arabian Free Liberals Forum which advocated free speech and insults Islam. In 2013 he was sentenced for 7 years and 600 lashes then in 2014 he was again resentenced.
ABOUT PEN PINTER PRIZE
  • Instituted in 2009 in the memory of British playwright and Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter.
  • Awarded annually to a U.K. writer who demonstrates a “fierce intellectual determination to define the real truth of our lives and our societies”.

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