3 years in jail for Motoon editor

January 21st, 2008 by Monitor

We’re a bit late with this one. A court is Minsk sentenced editor Alyaksandr Zdvizhkou for reprinting the Motoons. He was found guilty of “inciting racial hatred”.

The prosecution seems to be politically motivated, as Belarus has increasingly close links with Iran.

Bartholomew has more on this story.

UPDATE: (22nd Jan) It turns out the editor has actually been sentenced to 3 years’ hard labour – the toughest sentence received by a Motoons editor anywhere in the world – even those in Jordan and Yemen were only fined. According to a Jyllands-Posten spokesman

He (Szizhkov) was just doing his job and committed no crime – the crime was to convict him for it.

We (at the Jylland-Posten) have monitored very closely how the cartoons were controversial all over the word, but nowhere has a journalist been punished so severely (for publishing the cartoons


One Response to “3 years in jail for Motoon editor”

  1. martyn says:
    21/Jan/2008 at 6:11 pm

    “Belarus has increasingly close links with Iran”

    Ahh, would this be the muslim state Iran who are current bedfellows with the infidels of China? Hypocrites all.