The College Fix

‘We would rather share in his victimization than stand by and watch him being cruelly tortured’

After imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi received his first installment of 1,000 lashes for insulting his country’s clerics and advocating for an open society, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom did more than send a press release asking for leniency.

Seven of its commissioners offered their own backs to be bloodied and disfigured by Saudi authorities.

Commission Vice Chair Robert George, a Princeton University professor, told the Christian Post he sent a letter to the Saudi ambassador offering that he and his colleagues each take 100 of Badawi’s lashes if authorities wouldn’t stop his “horrific torture,” which is scheduled to continue weekly through the spring.

“Compassion, a virtue honored in Islam as well as in Christianity, Judaism, and other faiths, is defined as ‘suffering with another,’” read the letter. “We would rather share in [Badawi’s] victimization than stand by and watch him being cruelly tortured.”

Badawi’s punishment has drawn wide international condemnation, and not just from human rights groups such as Amnesty International.

The Independent reported that 18 Nobel laureates addressed a letter to Jean-Lou Chameau, president of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. They urged the Saudi academic community to take a stand against Badawi’s torture during a time when Saudi authorities are trying to market their country as a growing research hub.

Liberals and conservatives united

George’s colleagues who signed the letter to the Saudi ambassador included fellow academics Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard Law School, Daniel Mark of Villanova University and Eric Schwartz of the University of Minnesota.

Also signing were Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, Hannah Rosenthal of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and Katrina Lantos Swett of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice.

It’s an unusual group because of its ideological diversity. George is perhaps the best known social conservative in American academia, while three of the signatories were appointed by liberals – President Barack Obama, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

“We felt that we wanted to make a very dramatic offer” to get the Saudi government’s attention, Swett told The College Fix in an interview. She’s the daughter of the late Democratic congressman Tom Lantos, a Holocaust survivor and human rights advocate.

Swett emphasized that this was an action the seven commissioners took in their individual capacities, not on behalf of the commission. Like Swett, Rosenthal told The Fix that their gesture was mostly symbolic.

However, “I think each one of us felt that we would not sign the letter unless we were willing to do what we were asking in the letter,” Swett said.

Not just torture – a virtual death sentence

Swett described the “little knot of fear in my stomach” from even contemplating her torture. But she realized that was “just the tiniest inkling of how terrifying it must be for people who in fact live under the thumb of brutal authoritarian governments, where in point of fact, their rights, and their freedom, and their very physical safety is subject to be trampled upon at any moment at the whim of an unjust government.

“I have to say, in a personal way, it made me more sensitive to how terrifying and frightening that is,” Swett said.

“It’s not unlikely that [Badawi] could die from this,” Villanova’s Mark told The Fix, explaining what makes his torture so egregious.

Mark noted that Badawi’s punishment is 50 lashings a week for 20 weeks and that his second installment was delayed “because he was not sufficiently healed from the first beatings.

“What that tells you, obviously, is what do [Saudi authorities] care if he dies?” Mark said. “I supposed they don’t except that maybe they’d be embarrassed if he died on week two of 20.”

Swett and Mark said they don’t have further actions planned, individually or as a commission, but they will continue to monitor the situation. The Fix could not reach George for comment.