{"id":168631,"date":"2018-07-02T01:04:41","date_gmt":"2018-07-02T05:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=168631"},"modified":"2018-07-02T01:04:41","modified_gmt":"2018-07-02T05:04:41","slug":"wife-of-imprisoned-saudi-blogger-raif-badawi-sworn-in-as-canadian-citizen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/07\/02\/wife-of-imprisoned-saudi-blogger-raif-badawi-sworn-in-as-canadian-citizen\/","title":{"rendered":"Wife of imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi sworn in as Canadian citizen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Badawi<\/a>
Badawi was arrested on June 17, 2012, and later sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in jail for his criticism of Saudi clerics.
(Photo: Raif Badawi\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SHERBROOKE, Que. \u2013 \u00a0The wife of jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi is now a Canadian citizen.<\/p>\n

Ensaf Haidar and her three children took the oath of citizenship in a Canada Day ceremony on Sunday in Sherbrooke, Que.<\/p>\n

The human rights activist could be seen raising her arms and waving to a cheering crowd as her name was called, according to video of the ceremony published on social media.<\/p>\n

She later took to Twitter to declare, \u201cNow I can say that I’m a proud Canadian.\u201d<\/p>\n

Badawi was arrested on June 17, 2012, and later sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in jail for his criticism of Saudi clerics.<\/p>\n

He received 50 lashes in January 2015 during a public flogging but is not believed to have received any more corporal punishment since then.<\/p>\n

Badawi’s sentence has drawn widespread international condemnation, and Amnesty International has called on successive federal governments to do more to free him.<\/p>\n

Since Badawi’s arrest, Haidar has met with leaders in Canada and around the\u00a0world<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0while campaigning for her husband’s release.<\/p>\n

Earlier on Sunday, she told The Canadian Press that she was happy to become a Canadian, and felt her citizenship granted her and her children protection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m very happy today is an official citizenship, because I’ve felt like a Canadian for a long time,\u201d she said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n

Haidar, who has been vocal in criticizing the Canadian government for not doing enough to free Badawi, said her favourite thing about Canada is freedom of speech.<\/p>\n

Her hopes for her husband’s release were raised a few months ago when she received word he was on a list for a potential pardon.<\/p>\n

While that has yet to materialize, she said she’s staying optimistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still have hope that it’s going to be soon,\u201d she said, adding that she hopes her new status as a Canadian citizen will help her as she pushes to secure her husband’s freedom.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SHERBROOKE, Que. \u2013 \u00a0The wife of jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi is now a Canadian citizen. Ensaf Haidar and her …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":168638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16,17],"tags":[608,52445,52444,10070],"class_list":["post-168631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","category-news-w","tag-canadian","tag-citizen","tag-ensaf-haidar","tag-raif-badawi","mauthors-morgan-lowrie","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}