Poster with Raif Badawi provokes the local council in Interlaken
Since today our greeting message to Saudi guests is present on several billboards in Interlaken – but not on those owned by the town. The local council objected to our message. But we will not let them get get away with censorship, the issue is simply too important. The great media attention by Blick, Berner Zeitung, etc. confirms the relevance of our campaign.
For years, the Freethinkers Association has been campaigning for the Saudi dissident Raif Badawi, who in 2013 was sentenced to 1000 lashes, ten years in prison and subsequently banned from leaving the country for ten years - because he had advocated humanist principles on his blog, which Saudi judges had classified an «insult to Islam».
This spring, Badawi was finally released from prison, but the Saudi regime has refused to allow him to leave the country to join his family, who have been able to emigrate to Canada. We therefore designed a poster aimed at Saudi tourists in Switzerland. In three languages it says: «Welcome, dear Saudi guests - Great that you can enjoy your freedom to travel. When you’re back home, please lobby for Raif Badawi being able to do so too.»
A provocation?
We have focused on Interlaken for the poster campaign, since a large part of the Saudi tourists stop here. The train company BLS and the Postauto bus services accepted the subject without any problems, but the Interlaken municipal council prevented the poster from being displayed at communal poster sites marketed by APG/SGA because the poster could be «perceived as a provocation». «We consider this to be arbitrariness on the part of the authorities, as the decision is most probably not based on any legal foundation», says Andreas Kyriacou, president of the Freethinkers Association.
Discourse on social media:
#LetRaifFly on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn
Links:
- Report Switzerland Times (in English)
- Report Nation World (in English)
- Report Blick (in German)
- Report Berner Zeitung (in German)
- Report Berner Oberländer (in German)
- By the way, the story of Ensaf Haidar and Raif Badawi is also available as a book in our store.
- Badawi's release in March 2022 was also reported on by Amnesty International, among others.
- The first Free Thinkers Award 2015 went to the three Saudi citizens Ensaf Haidar, Raif Badawi and Waleed Abulkhair. The award recognizes their courageous commitment to humanist and secular values.