Raïf Badawi honoured

The University of Sherbrooke conferred an honourary doctorate on Raïf Badawi on Thursday afternoon as a part of an ongoing local and international effort to focus attention on the Saudi blogger’s imprisonment. The ceremony was proceeded by a roundtable discussion on the question, “how can we defend Raïf Badawi?”

“Very soon it will be five years that Raïf has been in prison,” noted Mireille Elchacar, the Eastern Townships representative for Amnesty International who has been working on Badawi’s case since 2013. “For us this honourary doctorate fits well with that anniversary because we want to get people talking a little bit more.”

Elchacar explained that five years will mark the halfway point of the blogger’s ten year sentence. She called it a grim anniversary, noting that Badawi’s sentence also includes 950 lashings that have yet to be administered.

The roundtable on citizen mobilization and political action included presentations by Elchacar, as well as Hervé Cassan, a law professor with significant background in the world of international diplomacy, Marie-ève Carignan, a professor in the university's faculty of communications, and Daniel Proulx, a professor in the university's faculty of Law. The conversation focused on the idea that human rights are fragile and that accessible information and ongoing public engagement are the keys to their protection.

“Raïf was arrested for defending the right to free expression,” Carignan said, “that is the clearest proof that speaking up has an impacts do important role to play.”

The communications professor argued that the impact that the public can make is tied directly to its level of engagement with a cause and said that keeping Badawi’s situation in the public eye is the best way to combat an unjust imprisonment.