- Saudi blogger Raif Badawi was jailed for 10 years and sentenced to 1,000 lashes.
- He was freed this month but remains in Saudi Arabia due to a 10-year travel ban.
- His wife, Ensaf Haidar, told Insider what it's like to be married to a political prisoner for a decade.
Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who was jailed for ten years and subsequently sentenced to 1,000 lashes for "insulting Islam" and promoting debate on secularism online, was released this month.
His liberation was the culmination of a decade of tireless campaigning, which included interventions from former US Vice President Mike Pence, Canada's prime minister Justin Trudeau, and international human rights groups.
Leading the charge was Badawi's wife of 20 years, Ensaf Haidar, who has done "thousands" of interviews, spoken at Capitol Hill, and addressed the UN — all part of her relentless effort to free her husband from imprisonment in Saudi Arabia.
When the phone call finally came on the morning of March 11 that Badawi but not allowed to leave Saudi Arabia., Haidar told Insider: "The adrenaline was high. There were no words to translate what I felt."
Badawi was arrested in 2012 on a charge of "insulting Islam through electronic channels." He was later charged with apostasy, or the renunciation of religion, which carries an automatic death penalty upon conviction.
He was a target for arrest by the Saudi Islamic religious police because of the forum he started in 2006, known as the "Saudi Liberal Network," which promoted debate on the primacy of religion in the deeply conservative and Muslim kingdom.
After his arrest, Badawi was designated a "prisoner of conscience" by Amnesty International. Human rights groups argued that he had been imprisoned solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression.
In July 2013, reports said that Badawi had been sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes. It was increased in 2014 to 1000 lashes, ten years in jail, and a fine.
In 2015, Badawi received 50 lashes in front of hundreds of spectators at a Jeddah mosque. It was widely condemned by Amnesty International, Prince Zeid bin Ra'ad of Jordan, and led to the birth of the "JeSuisRaif" online campaign to free him.
That year, Haidar told reporters that Saudi judges wanted to retry him for apostasy, punishable with death by beheading.
The day after the award-winning blogger and activist was released Saudi Arabia executed a record 81 people in a single day.
'Quebec has helped me a lot'
Shortly after Badawi's arrest in 2012, Haidar sought asylum in Quebec, Canada. She moved there with three young children after receiving anonymous death threats.
She told Insider that she was relieved to move to a Western nation.
"I was really happy because this is a free country, and I could be myself," she said. "I am an independent woman, in charge of myself."
Women's rights are severely restricted in Saudi Arabia; discrimination is rife and female activists are regularly imprisoned for peaceful activism.
Haidar and her family settled in Sherbrooke, a French-speaking town east of Montreal, but things weren't smooth sailing.
"There were some hard moments because I was with my children, I didn't speak French, I didn't have family with me," she said.
She was able to speak to her husband infrequently via phone calls. And because Badawi was in prison, the scope of what they could discuss was extremely limited.
"We didn't speak much about personal matters because the calls were always monitored," she said.
The absence of Badawi took a toll on the family, Haidar added.
"I left Saudi Arabia when the children were very young," she said. "My oldest, my daughter, was only seven, and my youngest was three."
I had to be both mother and father for them," Haidar said.
The children were occasionally reminded of their father's imprisonment at school. "Sometimes, Raif came up in school as an example of human rights work," she said.
Haidar said that the family received a lot of support from the people of Sherbrooke.
The support the family received instilled a deep love for Quebec in Haidar, which, in turn, inspired a run for office. She unsuccessfully ran as a candidate for Bloc Quebecois in Sherbrooke in the 2021 Canadian federal election.
Speaking to CTV News last year, she explained why she put herself forward. "I love Quebec," she said. "Quebec has helped me a lot. It supported me a lot."
A 10-year travel ban for Badawi
Haidar might have lost the election, but she told Insider that Badawi's freedom is the ultimate victory.
"Finally, I have won," she said. "His liberation is a huge event for us and, as for the next steps, we'll see what he has to do, but up until now, I don't have many details."
A family reunion is still off the cards for now. Saudi Arabia has confirmed a 10-year travel ban for Badawi, and he will remain there unless a royal pardon is issued, per reports.
Haidar remains hopeful that the travel ban might be overturned.
"Of course, we're really looking forward to Raif joining us here because we need him," she said. He's free now and can speak with us, but we need him here, under the same roof."