Thursday, March 12, 2009

Shoe Thrower Sentenced, Afghan Supreme Court?


"It is the farewell kiss, you dog" - Muntadher al-Zaidi

"It's an American court ... sons of dogs." - al Zaidi's Family


I could write about Bernie Madoff and his guilty sentence, or wax poetic over Bristol Palin's break up with the father of her love-child, but instead, let's turn some attention to South Asia and the Middle East.

Al Jazeerah reports on the following stories: "An Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush, then US president, has been given a three-year jail sentence after pleading not guilty to assaulting a foreign head of state.

The sentencing of Muntadher al-Zaidi, 30, by the Central Criminal Court in Baghdad on Thursday, was announced by Al-Baghdadiya television, his employer. The journalist, who became a hero to many Iraqis after the December 14 incident, arrived at the court under a heavy police escort.

Judge Abdulamir Hassan al-Rubaie said he had taken into consideration that al-Zaidi is young and it was his first offence, the defence lawyers said. As well as throwing the shoe, al-Zaidi shouted "It is the farewell kiss, you dog", before security forces wrestled him to the ground. Shoe-hurling is considered an especially grave insult in the Arab and Muslim world and al-Zaidi had risked up to 15 years in jail on the charge of aggression against a foreign head of state.

After the verdict on Thursday, al-Zaidi's 25-strong defence team emerged from the courtroom to scenes of chaos. Several family members screamed: "It's an American court ... sons of dogs."

"This is a political court. Muntadhar is being treated like a prisoner of war. He is not a normal prisoner ... This decision has been taken by the prime minister's office."

Al-Zaidi shouted "Iraq, long live Iraq" after the verdict was read out, Yahia Attabi, a defence lawyer, said. "We expected the decision because under the Iraqi criminal code he was charged with assaulting a foreign leader on an official visit."

I still find it amazing that Iraq has laws about assaulting a foreign leader, although it may have been put into their law by Paul Bremer, who may have single-handedly started the Iraq civil war...

Pakistan is such a land of contradictions. It embraces Wahabism, which has spawned at least 15 Talibans in Pakistan, yet it also embraces Sufism, which is a mystical and loving form of Islam. The ruler of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, is a Sufi, while the rest of his government is corrupt...

"Tribesmen in northwest Pakistan have signed a deal with the authorities promising not to shelter anti-government fighters in the areas on the border with Afghanistan, a local administration official has said. Shafirullah Khan said the deal was signed on Monday, a day after Taliban fighters released five Pakistani soldiers kidnapped during a military operation in August."

And this: "Hundreds of Pakistani lawyers and activists have started an anti-government march from the city of Karachi, the main city of Sindh province. Riot police arrested dozens of protesters and stopped cars and buses from collecting hundreds of lawyers assembled at the high court on Thursday ready for the journey to Islamabad.

The lawyers, who are calling on Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president, to reinstate judges sacked in 2007 by previous president Pervez Musharraf, instead left the high court on foot and started their march with other anti-government protesters."


And this: "At least eight people, including five policemen, have been killed in a car bomb blast in Pakistan's northwest city of Peshawar, officials say."

And this: "At least nine people have been killed and eight wounded after a suspected US drone aircraft fired missiles into a Pakistani region bordering Afghanistan, intelligence officials have said. Two missiles struck a house near Sarorogha village on Sunday in the South Waziristan tribal region, a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, one of the officials said. "According to our reports, there are "guests" among the dead," he said, referring to fighters from outside Pakistan."

On we go to Afghanistan, for a couple of chilling stories, as reported in this morning's NY Times: "The head of Russia's anti-narcotics service, Victor Ivanov, said that seizures of Afghan heroin were up 70%. Speaking ahead of a meeting in Vienna of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, he called on the UN to do more to fight the problem.

Afghanistan is thought to be the source of 93% of the world's heroin
"In recent years Russia has not just become massively hooked on Afghan opiates, it has also become the world's absolute leader in the opiate trade and the number one heroin consumer," he said in a report made available to reporters."

"The Supreme Court in Afghanistan has upheld a 20-year prison sentence for an Afghan university student journalist accused of blasphemy. The case has alarmed news media and rights organizations in the country and abroad.

The student’s family and lawyers said Wednesday that they had learned only recently about the court decision, which was made in secret on Feb. 12, and they called the procedure illegal.
The student, Parwiz Kambakhsh, 24, from northern Afghanistan, was arrested in 2007 and sentenced to death for blasphemy after accusations that he had written and distributed an article about the role of women in Islam. Mr. Kambakhsh has denied having written the article and said he had downloaded it from the Internet. His family and lawyers say he has been denied a fair trial.

In 2008, an appeals court in Kabul commuted the death sentence to 20 years’ imprisonment, a decision that was upheld by a tribunal of the Supreme Court last month. “Unfortunately the Supreme Court has confirmed the 20-year prison sentence for my brother,” said Yaqoub Ibrahimi, who is Mr. Kambakhsh’s brother. “We did not expect it at all.”

The decision came to light only when the attorney general’s office issued orders to the northern province of Balkh to enforce the decision, Afzal Nooristani, a defense lawyer for Mr. Kambakhsh, said in a telephone interview. “I was not allowed to talk with the judges and officials, which is a complete violation of law,” he said.

Judges at the Supreme Court were reluctant to comment on the case, except to say that Ghulam Nabi Nawaie, the lead judge of the tribunal that made the decision, was in India for medical treatment.

Journalists and news organizations flourished in the early post-Taliban years under President Hamid Karzai, but have increasingly suffered from threats and attacks from the Taliban and pressure from the government and religious conservatives.

An Afghan journalist, Javed Ahmad, 23, who worked for the Canadian broadcaster CTV, was gunned down Tuesday evening in the center of the southern city of Kandahar, the second killing of an Afghan journalist in southern Afghanistan in nine months. Abdul Samad Rohani, a journalist in Helmand Province, was shot dead last year, in a killing thought to be connected to his investigation of police involvement in the drug trade.

Three other well-established journalists have left Kandahar in recent months after receiving threats from Taliban insurgents over their coverage of events. Another journalist, Ghows Zalmai, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for blasphemy after publishing a Dari translation of the Koran that hard-line clerics disputed, said Human Rights Watch, based in New York.

Western diplomats and human rights organizations have expressed concern that despite Mr. Karzai’s assurances of press freedom and freedom of speech, journalists and civilians are under an increasing threat from both insurgents and conservative religious clerics allied with the government. Mr. Karzai, his critics say, is reluctant to move against the clerics in an election year."



Late night jokes:

"I'd love to give you some good economic news, but here's what I got. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said that our current economic crisis is as bad as the attack on Pearl Harbor, but still not as bad as the movie 'Pearl Harbor.'" -- Jimmy Fallon

"The U.S. is convinced that North Korea is testing a new long-range ballistic missile. But North Korea insists that it is just a satellite intended for peaceful purposes, like peacefully bombing South Korea." -- Jimmy Fallon

"John McCain's daughter, Meghan, she wrote yesterday that Ann Coulter is 'offensive,' 'radical,' and 'insulting.' Wow. That is by far the nicest thing anyone has ever said about Ann." -- Jimmy Fallon

"Thank you. As the octo-mom said, 'That was more than I was expecting.' By the way, Rush Limbaugh, as you know, is the new face of the Republican Party. Have you seen this guy? I mean, he looks like he's carrying octuplets." -- David Letterman

"Celebrity birthday today. Osama bin Laden turned 52 today, and apparently he's going through a mid-life crisis because he bought himself a bright red 1965 camel." -- David Letterman

"Well, in a stunning announcement, Citigroup showed a profit and had its best quarter since 2007. They made $8 billion in profit. That just goes to show you, you give a company $45 billion in government bailout money, and they'll show you how to turn it into $8 billion. See this is capitalism!" -- Jay Leno

"In North Korea, they're grooming President Kim Jong-il's son to take over for him. You know, we should let the of people in North Korea know, this doesn't always work out the best." -- Jay Leno

"I tell you, the economy is in bad shape. In fact, I saw the C.E.O. of Home Depot looking for work in the parking lot of Home Depot. That's how bad the economy is." -- Jay Leno

"And in real estate news, the octo-mom just bought a home here in Southern California for $565,000. How is she paying for this? She's got 14 kids, no job and no credit. Who financed this deal, A.I.G.?" -- Jay Leno

"And a sheriff in Illinois is suing Craigslist, claiming it's the largest source of prostitution in the United States. Apparently there are over 10,000 prostitutes on Craigslist, according to a list compiled by former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer." -- Jay Leno



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