In contrast to the worldwide outrage at the murder of cartoonists and journalists in Paris, there has been hardly any public reaction to news that Saudi Arabia is savagely beating a blogger, Raif Badawi, for “insulting Islam.”
The Saudis plan to inflict a sentence of 1000 lashes in weekly installments of 50. Badawi is also to spend 10 years in prison, where his lawyer must stay 15 year for daring to defend him.
The news that Boko Haram has just murdered some 2000 people and driven 30,000 from their homes -- ostensibly in its continuing campaign for Shariah law -- has also met with little international anger.
This double standard is infuriating.
Saudi Arabia should be subjected to the same bitter condemnation as the terrorists in Paris and its government should be censured by all organizations, national and international, that stand for civilized values. Journalists especially must be vocal in defending their own.
In the case of Boko Haram, there has been no shortage of outrage at its previous crimes, but the mass media continue to report its Islamic pretensions as if they were serious; they are only camouflage for its main business, trafficking drugs.
Saudi Arabia and Boko Haram presenting themselves as proponents of "Islam" is as bizarre as the claim of the butchers of Paris to be avenging the Prophet.
All of them deserve a noisily rude raspberry.
