BELARUS:Belarus yesterday jailed for three years an editor of an independent newspaper who reproduced cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that first appeared in Denmark in 2005 and caused mass demonstrations across the Muslim world.
The 12 cartoons portraying the founder of Islam, including one showing the prophet with a bomb in his turban, outraged Muslims, who saw them as blasphemous. More than 50 people died in protests across the world the following year.
Belarussian authorities shut down the newspaper Zgoda (Consensus)in March 2006, around the time other European journals began reprinting the cartoons. The security service, still known by its Soviet-era name, the KGB, began an investigation after Belarussian Muslims complained.
Editor Alexander Sdvizhkov was sentenced to three years for incitement of religious and national hatred. Muslims constitute about 2 or 3 per cent of the 10 million residents of Belarus. The Muslim community had called for leniency in the case.
Miklos Haraszti, media freedom representative for the 56-nation Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, protested against Sdvizhkov's jailing, calling the case against him "shocking" and saying he should be freed.
"Persecution of journalists for trying to inform the public on important issues is a misuse of hate speech laws," Mr Haraszti said in a statement from Vienna. "In fact the Belarus government has used the international controversy around the cartoons as a pretext to eliminate a critical voice from public life."