An in-depth exploration of what exactly it means to be flogged, as Cryptosphere contributor Raymond Johansen was on Sunday night in Trafalgar Square. Johansen underwent the punishment in solidarity with Raif Badawi, a liberal Saudi blogger imprisoned for ten years and sentenced to an additional 1000 lashes. His health has been so poor since the first 50 lashes that doctors have refused to let him undergo more, lest they result in his death.
You can see some photos of the flogging and the aftermath on Demotix.
The cane broke. Isn’t that all we need to know? The switch broke.
Raymond Johansen allowed himself to be tortured yesterday in solidarity with Saudi writer Raif Badawi. He was hit 50 times with a cane in Trafalgar Square, where public corporal punishments were once seen regularly but not since the 1830s. He had difficulty walking after and even expressed confusion as to where he was upon speaking with a reporter.
When a caning is administered it sometimes does not look as severe as one thinks a beating would look; even one of the words we use minimizes the severity: lashes. In writing about the Saudi Arabian writer Raif Badawi, who was sentenced last year to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison, I have run into this weakness of language. All language is analogy, and I have wanted the analogy to convey the pain of judicial corporal punishment…
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Categories: Activism, Anonymous, Fascism, Hackers, Hacktivism, Media, News, Pirate Party, Pirates, Police, Politics, Protests, Raif Badawi, Raymond Johansen, Saudi Arabia
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