7 offer to endure lash in blogger’s place

CONCORD, N.H. — Seven members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom have offered to personally endure most of the whippings that a liberal Saudi blogger has been sentenced to endure for “insulting Islam.”

Chairman Katrina Lantos Swett says she and her fellow commissioners made their offer to Saudi officials as individual followers of Islam, Christianity and Judaism rather than as representatives of the government agency.

Raif Badawi was sentenced in May to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes and was fined $266,000.

In a letter, the seven signatories say they would rather present themselves to each suffer 100 of his lashes “than stand by and watch him being cruelly tortured.”

— The Associated Press