Saudi justice is eager to appear equitable in dealing with both Islamist and liberal dissent. On May 6, a Saudi court sentenced liberal blogger Raif Badawi to 10 years in prison, 1,000 lashes and a fine of $267,000 for apostasy. Badawi has never declared himself an atheist. His crime was to set up a liberal discussion forum where anonymous contributors criticized religious scholars and offered commentaries on religious opinions in the kingdom.

Last year, similar long sentences were imposed on human right activists such as Abdullah al-Hamid and Muhammad al-Qahtani, whose main crime was to set up a political and civil right association calling for reform of the judiciary and an end to unlawful detention and torture in prisons. 

Arbitrary long prison sentences are common in Saudi Arabia, but the 1,000 lashes were rather unusual in their precise excess, yet important in that they sent clear messages to an internal constituency.

The regime wants to be seen as unbiased toward liberal impulses, especially after it criminalized aspects of Islamism and dubbed many Islamist groups as terrorist organizations. Now both Islamists and liberals can rest assured that their government does not apply favoritism in dealing with dissent.