Raif Badawi in the shadow of the Russian invasion

Free. Raif Badawi is finally free.

After 10 years spent in a Saudi prison where he was detained for having “insulted Islam” in his blog.

After a decade of fierce fighting led, from Quebec, by his wife, Ensaf Haidar, his three children and many allies, including a group of tireless citizens of Sherbrooke.

After years of repeated diplomatic requests from Canada, the United States and Europe.

On Friday, Raïf Badawi called his wife to tell her that he was leaving prison after serving his full sentence, but without having received 950 of the 1,000 lashes to which he had been sentenced.

“Your father is out!” Your father is out! “, then yelled M^me Haidar to her three children who were home at the time of the long-awaited phone call.

All this has a smell of victory for all those who mobilized, but this smell is that of a perfume with many bitter notes.

For the moment, Raïf Badawi, who has been separated from his family since 2002, still does not know when he will find her.

Last I heard, he is still under a travel ban for the next 10 years. The family expected that this additional draconian punishment would be dropped upon his release, but neither Mr. Badawi nor his wife had received such information on Friday.

Instead of celebrating, therefore, Amnesty International officials, who have worked hard on the case, are already organizing a rally to demand the lifting of the last conditions imposed on the Saudi blogger. “We’re only going to celebrate when he arrives in Quebec,” France-Isabelle Langlois, executive director of the French-speaking Canadian section of Amnesty International, told me on Friday afternoon.

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And always celebrate in halftone. Because even if we can rejoice in a happy ending for Raïf Badawi and his relatives, we cannot forget that the country which has just freed him still has one of the worst human rights records in the world. . “It’s good news, but there are so many other Raïfs we don’t talk about,” documentary filmmaker Patricio Henriquez told me on Friday. With Luc Côté, he co-directed a documentary on the Badawi family.

Walid Abou al-khair, Mr. Badawi’s brother-in-law, who is also his lawyer, is still behind bars, he recalls. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for denouncing the harsh punishments imposed on his fellow citizens who criticize the authorities. Mr. Badawi’s sister, Samar, a women’s rights activist, was released but still faces numerous restrictions.

In all, according to a count by Amnesty, around thirty prisoners of conscience are still behind bars.

And that’s not to mention the terrible war being waged by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and their allies in Yemen. A war against Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, but having a devastating backlash on civilians.

According to the latest United Nations figures, no less than 250,000 people have been killed in this seven-year conflict. Nearly two thirds of the 30 million inhabitants of this poor country currently live in acute food insecurity.

“Inside the country, there are few rights and freedoms, it’s a leaden screed. And the country is at the head of a military coalition responsible for one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. And the problem is that there is great complacency from the American and Canadian governments which continue to sell arms and military equipment to Saudi Arabia,” says France-Isabelle Langlois.

This complacency is not likely to fade anytime soon, as all eyes in the world are on Ukraine and the Russian invader.

Now is a good time for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to restore his image after being singled out for the sordid murder of Saudi commentator and dissident Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018.

Now that oil has become a weapon of war against the Kremlin, the prince’s phone is quite busy. So he apparently didn’t have time to take the call from the President of the United States, Joe Biden, this week, according to the wall street journal.

To prevent the price of a barrel of oil from rising to a crescendo after having banned the purchase of Russian oil, the American administration wants to convince the producing countries, such as Saudi Arabia or Venezuela, or even Iran, to raise their production.

So to stop human rights violations in Ukraine, to stop Vladimir Putin’s war crimes, you have to make pacts with rogue regimes that have little to do with the rights of their own citizens. And who, suddenly, in this very funny reshuffling of geopolitical maps, have the big end of the gas pump.

It only remains to hope that in his attempt to regain his virginity, Mohammed ben Salmane will let Raïf Badawi join his family in Quebec. The latter, who has never had his tongue in his pocket, will then be able to remind the Canadian government daily with whom he is doing business.