According to a news website, "Raif Badawi originally faced seven years jail and 600 lashes, but an appeal court overturned that sentence and ordered a retrial.
Amnesty International has called the new sentence 'outrageous' and says Badawi is a 'prisoner of conscience'. His website has been closed since his first trial.
Badawi was arrested in June 2012 and charged with cyber crime and disobeying his father - a crime in Saudi Arabia - in relation to his Saudi Liberal Network website..
The site included articles that were critical of senior religious figures such as Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti, according to Human Rights Watch.
The prosecution had demanded that Badawi be tried for apostasy, a crime which carries the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, but his original trial judge dismissed that charge.
Badawi's lawyers have slammed yesterday's sentence as too harsh, althought the prosecutor had asked for a harsher penalty, according to news website Sabq.
The ruling is subject to appeal but, after his last appeal led to a stiffer penalty, and with his original lawyer, human rights activist Waleed Abu al-Khair, currently held in Riyadh's Malaz Prison on charges including 'breaking allegiance with the king', Badawi may think twice about challenging the latest ruling.
Khair was detained incommunicado in April after appearing in court in Riyadh on sedition charges, according to his wife."
*sighs* didn't know blogging is now a crime in some parts of the world.
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