The Saudi Arabian ambassador to Canada is telling the federal government to mind its own business in the case of jailed blogger Raif Badawi.
Naif Bin Bandir Alsudairy says Ottawa must respect rulings handed down in his country's justice system.
The ambassador said at a news conference today the federal government needs to stop raising Badawi's case with Saudi authorities.
Badawi was arrested in June 2012 and later sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in jail for his criticism of Saudi clerics.
He received the first 50 lashes but is believed to have been spared the others because of his poor health.
His imprisonment has drawn widespread international condemnation and Amnesty International has accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of not doing enough to free him.
In 2015, Badawi was awarded Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament.
Ensaf Haidar, his wife, accepted the award on his behalf.
"Free-thinking Arabs are used to concealing their ideas to get them through," Ensaf Haidar said, quoting her husband during the ceremony in Strasbourg. "Free and enlightened ideas are considered blasphemous in the ideology adopted by Arab societies, in which every free thought is decadence and a diversion from the true path."
"Raif is not a criminal," she continued. "He is a writer and a free thinker: that is all. Raif Badawi’s crime is being a free voice in a country which does not accept anything other than a single opinion and a single thought."
Haidar now live in exile in Canada. She and her three children with Badawi live in Sherbrooke.
—Andrew Brennan contributed to this report