English

Journalist Zdvizhkow to be released on Friday as Supreme Court cuts his prison term

Imprisoned journalist Alyaksandr Zdvizhkow was expected to be released on February 22 after the Supreme Court shortened his sentence at a hearing earlier in the day.

The deputy editor of the now-closed newspaper Zhoda was sentenced to three years in prison last month over the reprinting of controversial Danish cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad. He was guilty of "inciting racial, national or religious enmity or discord."

The journalist’s appeal against the sentence was heard in the Supreme Court on Friday. As his lawyer, Maya Alyaksandrava, told reporters following the closed-door hearing, the court reduced the sentence to three months, citing his health problems and the poor health of his elderly mother.

Mr. Zdvizhkow was to be released on Friday as he had already spent more than three months in custody.

The case against Mr. Zdvizhkow was opened in February 2006 following a complaint by Ismail Varanovich, mufti of the Spiritual Association of Muslims in Belarus. The Zhoda was closed down over the reprinting of the cartoons in the spring of 2006.

International press watchdogs expressed anger at the sentence. The Danish newspaper editor who printed the cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that caused outrage among some Muslims across the world in 2005 and 2006 also denounced the sentence.

Mr. Zdvizhkow was transferred from a Minsk detention center to the national prison hospital in the city earlier this week. He was diagnosed with progressing myopia.