Committee to Protect Journalists: News Alert
New York, January 18, 2008—Minsk City Court in Belarus today imprisoned Aliaksandr Zdvizhkou, an editor at the now-shuttered independent weekly Zgoda (Consensus) newspaper, for reprinting controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2006. Zdvizhkou was charged with “incitement of religious hatred” and sentenced to three years in a high-security prison.
Zdvizhkou was arrested on November 18 and his trial began on January 11 in Minsk, according to local news reports. He was tried behind closed doors.
“Clearly this is just a pretext to punish an independent journalist even after shutting down his publication,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “We call on the Belarusian authorities to immediately release Aliaksandr Zdvizhkou.”
Read the full text of CPJ News Alert here.
