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Journalist sentenced to three years in prison over publication of Muhammad cartoons

Ruslan Aniskevich, a judge of the Minsk City Court, on Friday sentenced Alyaksandr Zdvizhkow, deputy editor of the now-closed newspaper Zhoda, to three years in a medium-security prison over the reprinting of controversial Danish cartoons of Prophet Muhammad.

The journalist was found guilty of «inciting racial, national or religious enmity or discord» under Paragraph II of the Criminal Code’s Article 130.

The case was opened in February 2006 following a complaint by Ismail Varanovich, mufti of the Spiritual Association of Muslims in Belarus. However, the mufti said ahead of the trial that he did not demand criminal punishment for the journalist.

The Zhoda was closed down over the reprinting of the cartoons in the spring of 2006.

The caricatures include drawings of Muhammad wearing a headdress shaped like a bomb, while another shows him saying that paradise was running short of virgins for suicide bombers.

Their publication in Denmark led Arab nations to protest. Islamic tradition bans depictions of the Prophet.

Mr. Zdvizhkow, who has been held in custody since late 2007, plans to appeal the sentence to the Supreme Court.