BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

18/01/2008

OSCE protests jailing of Belarus editor who printed Muhammad cartoons

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Europe's largest security organization lodged a protest Friday with authorities in Belarus, where a newspaper editor was ordered jailed for three years for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that originally were published in Denmark.

Miklos Haraszti, media freedom representative for the Vienna-based Organization 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 called the sentence to a high-security prison excessive and accused Belarus of misusing hate speech laws.

The verdict was announced Friday, the OSCE said.

Source:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1200572486109&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull