Journalist Imprisoned Over Cartoons
Update: Freed by the attorney general after two hours.
The first of three verdicts in the cases of the newspapers that published the Mohammed cartoons. The following article was written by Mohammed al-Asadi who was imprisoned for several weeks on the same charges and who also has a verdict pending against him. The YO’s license was revoked in February, and it resumed publishing in May.
YO: Kamal al-Olufi, editor of the Al-Rai Al-A’am weekly, was imprisoned today, after Judge Hassan al-Akwa’a sentenced him to a year behind bars for insulting Islam and abusing the prophet.
The judge also ordered that the newspaper be shut down for six months, and that al-Olufi be banned from writing for the same period, upon completion of his prison sentence. Moreover, al-Olufi was also sentenced to pay for the publishing of the court verdict in all the newspapers in the country.
Al-Rai Al-A’am ran an image of the Danish paper Jyllands Posten’s homepage, on which with some of the cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed were visible. The Al-Rai Al-A’am was defending the prophet, and protested the Danish cartoons, according to its editor, Al-Olufi.
Defense lawyers Mohammed Naji Allawo and Khaled Al-Anesi described the verdict as a scandal. However, the lawyers of radical sheikh Abdul-Majid Al-Zindani, whose accusations against the press and various editors were rejected by the judge, were visibly happy and excited to hear the sentence. Zindani commissioned 21 prosecutors to prosecute newspapers and editors who republished images of the Danish cartoons.
Judge Al-Akwa’a’s announcement was received with mixed reactions. Some screamed “Long Live Justice!” and other voices cried out, “It Is Unjust!”
Smiling, the judge asked the head of defense team, after the conclusion of the session, “What do you think of my verdict?”
“It is wrong,” Allawo said.
The Yemen Observer and its editor-in-chief are scheduled to hear their verdicts in a similar case, by Judge Sahl Hamza in another Sana’a court on December 6.
Also at al-Shoura, the website of the last editor sentenced to a year in jail, my buddy al-Khaiwani.
The editor in chief and Publisher of the Alray Al-Am weekly Kamal Al-Olofi considered the verdict issued against him , closing down of his paper, and fining him as “adversary to the new trends announced by the President who promised more press freedoms and banning imprisoning of writers for publishing and opinion issues”.
He told News Yemen service from his prison that the Danish cartoons issue died in all of the Arab and Islamic world , except here where it is still used to settle accounts with journalists who keep writing on corruption and defaming the corrupt”..
Al-Olofi said that he is confident that the appeal court would not uphold such a verdict.
Lawyer Mohammed Naji Allaw, head of the National Committee for the Defense of rights and freedoms said that the general prosecutor ordered immediate release of Kamal Al-Olofi who was arrested immediately after the verdict. His own lawyer Khalid Al-Anisi, also of the same commission, said that his client imprisonment is illegal until it is upheld by the supreme court after the appeal. He said that these verdicts are scandalous and contradictory to Islamic Share’a and Yemeni laws.
“there’s one positive aspect of the verdict, which is discarding the claim of Hisba ( case filed on behalf of the society by non-harmed persons on their belief that the defendant had harmed the society and religion).
Press Syndicate also criticized the verdict, where Ali Al-Jaradi, media officer of the syndicate said that “Al-Olofi was imprisoned because he was trying to defend prophet’s cause and could have made unintentional mistake by republishing the toons which were marked by a large X over them anyway. It is concerning that such verdict would be interpreted by fanatics as a license to further action that might threaten the lives of journalists involved”.
“President’s talking about freedoms and banning of imprisonment for opinion is not interpreted until now in form of laws and regulations” he said.. He called Yemeni judicial authorities to contemplate these verdicts that could only kill freedom of expression, saying that they “cast back the shadows of medieval inquisition age”..
The YO has a follow-up.
Update: Mohammed al-Asadi of the Yemen Observer in December received a fine equivelent of $2525. He was also found not to be heretic, which is good because he’s not.
