Yemeni Editor Imprisoned Over the Prophet Muhammad Cartoons Discusses Press Freedom
Yemenis protest in Sanaa over the publication of the cartoons.
Image source: Newsweek / Khaled Fazaa / AFP-Getty Images
Image source: Newsweek / Khaled Fazaa / AFP-Getty Images
Rob Nordland writes in Newsweek:
Mohammed al-Asaadi is an improbable martyr to a free press. As the editor in chief of the generally pro-government Yemen Observer, a weekly English-language newspaper owned by Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh's media adviser, al-Asaadi has not been party to the sort of controversies that have seen many Yemeni journalists jailed in recent years.Read the interview here.
But when his newspaper ran an article about the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist, Asaadi decided to reprint the cartoons—albeit with a large X censoring most of them, and an article denouncing them. On Feb. 11, he was arrested and charged with insulting the Prophet. He is now in jail in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, awaiting trial.
NEWSWEEK arranged for a visitor to take a cell phone to him today, and NEWSWEEK's Rod Nordland interviewed him by phone.
posted by Fergie @ 2/17/2006 06:25:00 PM
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