A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced poet Ashraf Fayadh to death for atheism and renouncing Islam–despite Fayadh’s claims that he is a faithful Muslim. Fayadh thinks he is being targeted due to his longer hair and because he shared a video showing the country’s religious police beating a man in public.
Fayadh is a Palestinian refugee who has lived in Saudi Arabia for years. He was first accused of blasphemy in 2013, and he was sentenced to public lashings and four years in prison in May 2014. He appealed this sentence, was retried, and was then sentenced to death. He was not permitted to have legal representation during his appeal.
Read the entire article in The Guardian