Western governments have condemned Badawi's treatment, and rights groups including Amnesty International have campaigned for his release. The Foreign Office said in a statement that ministers "regularly raise human rights cases with the Saudi Arabian government at the highest levels, including the case of Raif Badawi." Fenton, a former Oxford University professor of poetry and war correspondent, said Badawi's punishment represented "a world of inconceivable cruelty, but intimately linked to ours by business, strategic interests, military and diplomatic ties."