Saudi Arabian blogger Raif Badawi, who was sentenced to 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam, may be flogged for a second time on Friday.
Human Rights Watch said it believed that a second round of flogging would take place on Friday, following the new court decision, reported the Guardian.
This week Saudi Arabia’s supreme court upheld a sentence of 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes to the blogger.
The judgment came despite criticism from the United Nations, United States, European Union, Canada and others.
In January Badawi received the first of 20 sets of 50 lashes.
The punishment was ordered to be spread over 20 weeks and carried out on Fridays outside a mosque in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, but subsequent rounds of lashes were postponed on medical grounds.
Badawi co-founded the Saudi Liberal Network internet discussion group, which encouraged online debate about religious and political issues, in 2008.
He was arrested in June 2012 under cybercrime provisions and sentenced last May.
In his first letter from prison, published by the German weekly Der Spiegel in March, Badawi wrote how he “miraculously survived 50 lashes,” recalling that he was “surrounded by a cheering crowd who cried incessantly ‘Allahu Akbar’ [God is greatest]” during the whipping.
“All this cruel suffering happened to me because I expressed my opinion,” Badawi wrote.
Badawi’s wife and their three children have been granted asylum in Québec, Canada.
Saudi human rights activists and dissidents have frequently been the subject of harsh judgments.