Story highlights Activist's wife calls sentence "devastating" 
 
 Raif Badawi has been in prison since June 2012 
 
 Human Rights Watch calls the sentence a "mockery" 
 
 Rights groups say Saudi authorities are targeting activists through the courts, travel bans 
 
 A Saudi court has sentenced a activist to seven years in prison and 600 lashes for violating the nation's anti-cybercrime law, Human Rights Watch reported Wednesday. 
 
 A Jeddah Criminal Court found Raif Badawi, who has been in prison since June 2012, guilty this week of insulting Islam through his website and in television comments. 
 
 "This incredibly harsh sentence for a peaceful blogger makes a mockery of Saudi Arabia's claims that it supports reform and religious dialogue," said Nadim Houry, the deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "A man who wanted to discuss religion has already been locked up for a year and now faces 600 lashes and seven years in prison." 
 
 Raif Badawi has been in prison since June 
 
 His lawyer, Waleed Abu al-Khair, told Human Rights Watch that Judge al-Harbi read the verdict Monday. The court is expected to send him a written notification by August 6. They'll have 30 days to appeal. 
 
 Case separates family 
 
 Ensaf Haidar, Badawi's wife, said she's devastated by the news. 
 
 "I don't know what to do," Haidar said Wednesday. "Raif did nothing wrong." 
 
 Haidar and the couple's three children now live in Lebanon. 
 
 Estranged from her family, Haidar said it would be impossible to take her children back to Saudi Arabia. The stigma is too strong there. 
 
 "You feel like everybody's accusing you," she said, close to tears, in an April interview. "Like everybody's against you, at war with you." 
 
 CNN has made several attempts to reach the Saudi Arabia government for comment but received no response. 
 
 A contentious five years 
 
 Badawi's legal troubles started shortly after he started the Free Saudi Liberals website in 2008. He was detained for one day and questioned about the site. Some clerics even branded him an unbeliever and apostate. 
 
 Last summer, Human Rights Watch released a statement urging Saudi authorities to free Badawi. 
 
 "Saudi authorities should drop charges and release the editor of the Free Saudi Liberals website for violating his right to freedom of expression on matters of religion and religious figures," a statement from the group said at the time. 
 
 Rights groups accuse Saudi authorities of targeting activists through the courts and travel bans. Many were outraged when two of the country's most prominent reform advocates, Mohammed Al-Qahtani and Abdullah Al-Hamid, were sentenced in March to 10 years in prison apiece. 
 
 Amnesty International called that trial "just one of a troubling string of court cases aimed at silencing the kingdom's human-rights activists." 
 
 Asked in January about accusations that Saudi Arabia is cracking down on dissent, Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry, told CNN, "At the Interior Ministry, our area of responsibility is security." 
 
 He added, "My understanding is that these cases are being looked at by the courts now. Nobody will comment on cases being looked at by the courts." 

 Image caption Raef Badawi was facing a possible death sentence for apostasy 
 
 A Saudi online activist has been jailed for seven years and sentenced to 600 lashes for urging religious liberalisation, his lawyer has said. 
 
 The activist, Raef Badawi, co-founded the Free Saudi Liberals website, an online forum for public debate. 
 
 He was arrested last year and convicted on Monday of setting up a website that undermined general security. 
 
 Amnesty International considers Mr Badawi a political prisoner and has called for his immediate release. 
 
 Mr Badawi was originally charged with apostasy, or abandonment of religion, a crime in Saudi Arabia that carries with it the death penalty. 
 
 Lawyer Waleed Abu Alkhair told the BBC that Mr Badawi, a father of three, had confirmed in court that he was a Muslim but told the judge "everyone has a choice to believe or not believe." 
 
 He was convicted of the charges of setting up a website that undermines general security and of ridiculing religious figures. 
 
 The judge ordered that the 600 lashes be administered 150 at a time. 
 
 Mr Alkhair said the charges were over comments the activist posted calling for a relaxation of Saudi Arabia's strict interpretation of Islam. 
 
 The lawyer said the sentence was unduly harsh. 
 
 "The lashes could be spread out but in Sharia this is a sign that the judge wants to insult him," he said. 
 
 His lawyer said he will appeal against the decision. 

 The founder of a liberal-minded website in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes after angering Islamic authorities in the ultraconservative kingdom, a newspaper reported Tuesday. 
 
 Raif Badawi, through his website known as Free Saudi Liberals, had urged Saudis to share opinions about the role of religion in the country, which follows a strict form of Islam that includes harsh punishments for challenging customs. 
 
 A judge in the Red Sea port of Jiddah imposed the sentences but dropped charges of apostasy, which could have brought a death sentence, the Al-Watan newspaper reported. Badawi has been held since June 2012. 
 
 The newspaper did not name the judge who sentenced Badawi, nor did it say when the ruling was handed down. It was unclear Tuesday whether Badawi would receive any credit for the time he's already served. 
 
 Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, said Tuesday that the U.S. was "deeply concerned" by the sentence given to Badawi. 
 
 "We believe that when public speech is deemed offensive, be it via social media or any other means, the issue is best addressed through open dialogue and honest debate," Psaki said. 
 
 Hard-line Saudi clerics have raised repeated objections to social media, including one prominent Islamic scholar describing Twitter as a path to hell. He later withdrew the comment.
– A Saudi blogger has been sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes for using his website to insult Islam. Believe it or not, that's a lighter sentence than Raif Badawi, 35, might have received: he was originally arrested last year for apostasy (or abandoning religion), a crime that is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia, the BBC reports. Badawi's lawyer says instead he was charged for calling for "religious liberalization" in the country and criticizing the religious police, AFP reports. The judge also ordered that the website, Free Saudi Liberals, be shut down. "This incredibly harsh sentence for a peaceful blogger makes a mockery of Saudi Arabia's claims that it supports reform and religious dialogue," says a spokesperson for Human Rights Watch, per CNN. A State Department spokeswoman says the US is also "deeply concerned" about the sentence, the AP reports. "We believe that when public speech is deemed offensive, be it via social media or any other means, the issue is best addressed through open dialogue and honest debate," she says. Badawi's lashes will be administered 150 at a time, reports the BBC. His lawyer says he will appeal the sentence.