Raif Badawi

Saudi Arabia has asked Canada's ambassador to leave the country within 24 hours, just two days after Canada criticized the arrest of women's rights and other civil society activists in the Arab kingdom.

U.S. journalist Jeff Mason, head of the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA), received the Freedom of Speech Award on June 19 at the Global Media Forum, hosted by Deutsche Welle in Germany's Bonn - a prize that he said he "never would have sought or expected."

The sister of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who was recently sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes, was arrested Jan. 12, Amnesty International said, calling it "damning proof" of the kingdom's human rights abuses.

The wife of jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi on Dec. 16 accepted the European Parliament's prestigious Sakharov human rights prize on his behalf, urging Arab countries to reject theocratic diktats and tolerate differing views.

Raif Badawi, a 31-year-old Saudi blogger and the creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and flogged in public 50 times simply for blogging about free speech.

He has 950 more lashes, which have been postponed due to Badawi?s poor health.

Saudi Arabia's supreme court has upheld a sentence of 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes against blogger Raif Badawi on charges of insulting Islam, his wife said on June 7.

The judgment came despite worldwide outrage over his case and criticism from the United Nations, United States, the European Union, Canada and others.       

I have to admit that I was a little late in catching up with the tension between Sweden and Saudi Arabia. For latecomers like me, let me summarize the situation.

First let me start by recalling that the Swedish government announced a ?feminist? foreign policy when it took office in September.