Saudi blogger awarded by top EU human rights Award

Raif Badawi, a blogger and activist who has been imprisoned and publicly flogged for criticizing Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment, was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the European Union’s top human rights award, on Thursday.

Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, who announced the award, called Mr. Badawi “an extremely good man, an exemplary man who has had imposed on him one of the most gruesome penalties” that “can only really be described as brutal torture.” Mr. Schulz urged the Saudi king to “immediately grant mercy to Mr. Badawi and to free him so that he can accept the prize.”

He added, “In the case of Mr. Badawi, fundamental human rights are not only not being respected, they are being trodden underfoot.”

Mr. Badawi, 31, was arrested in 2012 — on charges that included apostasy, cybercrime and disobeying his father — after he started a website that criticized the Saudi religious establishment. In 2013, he was sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes. The next year, he was resentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes. (He was not convicted of apostasy, which carries a death sentence.)

On Jan. 9, Mr. Badawi received his first 50 lashes at a mosque outside the port city of Jidda. It is not clear why he has not been caned since then, though his wife, Ensaf Haidar, has said that he is in poor health and might not survive the caning. Ms. Haidar and the couple’s three children live in Canada, where they sought asylum.

Mr. Badawi’s case has become a cause célèbre among human rights observers. Officials at the United Nations, the United States and other Western powers have condemned his sentencing, as have Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. This month, he was the co-recipient of the PEN Pinter Prize, a free-speech award established in 2009 in honor of the British playwright Harold Pinter

The authorities also jailed Mr. Badawi’s lawyer, Waleed Abulkhair, the founder of a group called Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia. He was sentenced last year to 15 years in prison for undermining the government, inciting public opinion and insulting the judiciary.

Reached by telephone, an official at the Saudi Mission to the European Union in Brussels said the kingdom did not have a response to the announcement. He pointed to a past statement in which the Saudi authorities stated that their judicial system was independent and that it was not the place of outsiders to criticize it.

UN Human rights conference was also headed by Saudi Arab but seeing many examples of unfair punishments on free speech, many criticized this act. 

Link related to blog: Nation

Mecca Grand Mosque crane collapse death toll 107, Hajj to go ahead

The demise of many human lives in Mecca crane crash was the saddest news of the week.

 The Pakistani officials on Sunday confirmed that six Pakistanis have died in a crane crash incident in the Saudi city of Mecca late Friday during annual pilgrimage.

Saudi officials said that 107 people were killed and nearly 300 wounded when a crane toppled over at Mecca’s Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia due to strong winds and rains. Pakistani Ambassador in Saudi Arabia Manzoorul Haq said that six Pakistanis were killed while 36 were injured in the deadliest crane crash.

In a statement, the ambassador said that the injured Pakistanis were receiving treatment in three hospitals in Mecca. Pakistani mission released names of those died in the incident. Pakistani sources said that at least ten Pakistani intending-pilgrims were missing. Over 150,000 Pakistanis are performing Hajj this year, according to the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

While Saudi authorities said on Saturday the annual Hajj pilgrimage would go ahead despite crane collapse, in which 107 people were killed, where crowds returned to pray a day after the disaster.

Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims have already arrived in Mecca for the haj, one of the world's largest religious gatherings which last year drew two million worshipers.

Two Indian pilgrims also expired in the crash. This was one of the most deadly incident of the week around the world in which dozens of people lost their lives.

Yemeni starving for food as the Saudi led air strike continue

The war has made several people starving for food and living in fear. 

New York Times reported that in one of Yemen’s largest cities, residents have been reduced to a diet of rice. In another, they sleep overnight in lines waiting for gasoline. 

Hospitals may soon be forced to close, bombs and shells are raining down ever more thickly and randomly, and in places snipers target anyone brave or desperate enough to walk the streets.

Five weeks after the start of a Saudi-led bombing campaign, More than 1,000 Yemenis have died in the fighting.

United Nations says that at least 300,000 people have been displaced, forced to hunt for food and fuel in a country bereft of both. 

Fierce fighting in the port city of Aden has killed dozens of people in the last few days, left neighborhoods in flames and set off a panicked exodus.

On Thursday, little more than a week after Saudi Arabia said it was shifting the focus of its military operations in Yemen to make way for political negotiations and humanitarian relief, residents of the capital, Sana, were subjected to some of the heaviest airstrikes since the bombing began.

The worsening humanitarian crisis, a deepening civil war that threatens to inflame the regional struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran and little evidence that either side is winning or seriously pursuing negotiations have raised stark questions about the strategic goals of the Saudi-led military campaign and the international response.

The war has made no good yet but the Yemenis are suffering a lot. No negotiations has took any concrete steps for now but the Saudis say that their forces killed dozens or Irani bakced rebels, while innocents are also part of this disaster. They said in a statement that those rebels attacked on Saudi border.