Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who was arrested in 2012, should have been released last Monday.

The prison sentence to which he was sentenced expired on February 28.

However, according to Reporters Without Borders, Badawi is still being held in the central prison in Dhahban, north of Jeddah.

In 2012, the Saudi judiciary sentenced Badawi to ten years in prison, a fine of one million riyals (around 240,000 euros) and 1,000 strokes of the cane.

In addition, a ten-year travel ban was issued after the end of his prison sentence.

Badawi was publicly tortured with fifty lashes in front of a mosque in Jeddah in 2015.

However, due to worldwide outcry, the remainder of the caning was suspended.

In his blog posts, Badawi proposed a separation of state and religion.

The Saudi judiciary interpreted this as an insult to Islam.

In 2008, Raif Badawi co-founded the online forum Free Saudi Liberals, in which religious and social issues were openly discussed.

In 2015, while in detention, Badawi received the EU's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought and Deutsche Welle's Freedom of Speech Award.

Reporters Without Borders has urged the Saudi authorities to release Raif Badawi immediately.

There is no legal basis for continuing to detain Badawi, said RSF managing director Christian Mihr.

Badawi's wife Ensaf Haidar is campaigning for her husband's release from abroad.

She has lived in Quebec, Canada since 2013 and hopes that the government there will work to ensure that her husband obtains Canadian citizenship and that her family can finally be reunited.

The ten-year travel ban that was imposed on Raif Badawi stands in the way of this.

Two years ago, Saudi Arabia announced that it would no longer use whips or sticks as punishment.

This should be part of a modernization package by Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman.

At least 28 other journalists in prison

At least 28 media workers are currently in prison in Saudi Arabia.

In March 2021, Reporters Without Borders filed criminal charges against Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman with the Federal Public Prosecutor in Karlsruhe.

The main charges are the arbitrary arrests of journalists and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

The journalist was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.

The Istanbul Attorney General issued arrest warrants for two Saudi officials.

In December 2018, the US Senate published the assessment that Crown Prince Bin Salman was responsible for the murder.

The Saudi government denied the allegation.

UN Special Rapporteur Agnès Callamard concluded that Khashoggis had been executed and called for an investigation into Bin Salman.

He's behind the murder.

In 2019 there was a trial against eleven defendants in Saudi Arabia, five were sentenced to death and three to 24 years in prison.

The death penalty was lifted the following year.

According to press reports, those accused of the "killer squad" are at large.

Raif Badawi was still in prison at the time this article went to press, according to Reporters Without Borders.