NEWSPAPER EDITOR JAILED OVER MUHAMMAD CARTOONS
January 23rd 2008 08:03
VIENNA-BASED SECURITY ORGANISATION PROTESTS JAILING OF BELARUS NEWSPAPER EDITOR OVER MUHAMMAD CARTOONS
Europe's largest security organisation lodged a protest last Friday with authorities in Belarus, where a newspaper editor was ordered to be jailed for three years for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that were originally published in Denmark.
KYTV Post said Miklos Haraszti, media freedom representative for the Vienna-based Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, urged officials in the ex-Soviet republic to release Alexander Zdvizhkov, the former deputy editor of the Zhoda newspaper.
Haraszti said Zdvizhkov’s sentencing to a term in a high-security prison was excessive, and accused Belarus of misusing hate speech laws.
Zhoda newspaper was closed down by a court in March 2006 following the reprinting of the caricatures, which originally appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
Criminal proceedings alleging ‘incitement of religious hatred’ were reopened following Zdvizhkov's arrest in November 2007 when he returned to Belarus after spending the past two years living in Russia and Ukraine.
Europe's largest security organisation lodged a protest last Friday with authorities in Belarus, where a newspaper editor was ordered to be jailed for three years for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that were originally published in Denmark.
KYTV Post said Miklos Haraszti, media freedom representative for the Vienna-based Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, urged officials in the ex-Soviet republic to release Alexander Zdvizhkov, the former deputy editor of the Zhoda newspaper.
Zhoda newspaper was closed down by a court in March 2006 following the reprinting of the caricatures, which originally appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
Criminal proceedings alleging ‘incitement of religious hatred’ were reopened following Zdvizhkov's arrest in November 2007 when he returned to Belarus after spending the past two years living in Russia and Ukraine.
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