Belarus: 3 year sentence for Muhammad cartoon - officially

Posted by Jean Yves Chainon on January 23, 2008 at 11:33 AM

Aleksandr Sdvizhkov, editor of now-shuttered independent weekly Zgoda in Belarus, was sentenced to three years in a high-security prison, for reprinting controversial Danish cartoons of Prophet Muhammad in 2006.

Sdvizhkov was charged and found guilty of “incitement of religious hatred.”

"Clearly this is just a pretext to punish an independent journalist even after shutting down his publication," said Joel Simon, Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. "We call on the Belarusian authorities to immediately release Aleksandr Sdvizhkov."

Even Belarusian Islamic leader Ismail Voronovich said he wanted authorities to reprimand the journalist, not jail him.

"I thought that this case was closed and the newspaper was back working," The Associated Press quoted Voronovich as saying today.

Seems like this is more of a case of restraints on press freedom than it is about editorial choices over the publication of the Muhammad cartoons.

Source: Ifex.org