For some people, blogging is an everyday activity — a way to share ideas, pass along travel tips, rave about a new recipe or drum up support for a social or political cause.
For others, it’s a dance with death where the simple act of putting out your thoughts over the internet can result in harassment, imprisonment and torture — even execution.
Members of the Tri-City Amnesty International group will be highlighting the case of one such blogger, Raif Badawi, at a booth in Port Moody’s Rocky Point Park on Aug. 21 from 3 to 9 p.m. They are also hoping to raise awareness and collect signatures and donations to help Arif and Leyla Yunis, historians, jailed in Azerbaijan for their work advocating a peaceful solution to the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict of the early 1990s that left thousands dead.
According to an Amnesty press release, the human rights activists live in separate prisons — Arif Yunis in solitary confinement, Leyla Yunis, who was nominated for the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize, in conditions that are injuring her physical and emotional health.
The couple has headed Azerbaijan’s Institute for Peace and Democracy since 1995 and have received many awards. Leyla Yunis was arrested first, in July 2014, and charged with treason, tax evasion, forgery, fraud and illegal business in relation to a grant received by her institute. Arif Yunis was arrested on the same charges six days later.
Amnesty says that Badawi, meanwhile, was arrested in Saudi Arabia in June 2012 and charged with insulting Islam by creating a website for social and political debate. His case bounced back and forth between courts until May 2014, when he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, 1,000 lashes and a fine of about $290,000 Cdn.
To learn more, you can stop by the Amnesty booth Friday. For information, call 604-464-7706.
