Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they pressed for the case of Raif Badawi to be discussed at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Conference in Jeddah on 3 and 4 June; and if so, what was the response of the government of Saudi Arabia.

The conference was a multilateral event hosted by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and not by Saudi Arabia, and therefore was not an appropriate forum to discuss individual Saudi Arabian legal cases. However, we are extremely concerned about Raif Badawi’s case and have discussed it at the most senior levels in the Government of Saudi Arabia, most recently on 9 June. We await the outcome of the current Saudi Arabian Supreme Court review of the case.