Today journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi was sentenced for 3 years in jail after he threw his shoes at former President Bush in his farewell address in Iraq. This insult was not taken lightly because of the embarrassment that it caused the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.
Although I believe that this was a protest, this qualified Journalist had no reason to throw his shoes at Bush and should be punished. But, I think that his sentence was quite harsh because the attack was not meant to inflict any pain, it was to make a statement. He should be punished but not so harshly.
What do you think should have happened?
Thursday, March 12, 2009
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3 comments:
Well,I read somewhere that his imprisonment could have turned out to be something between 3 months to 15 years... so he got a little lucky... although I think 3 years is still harsh. I also remember reading that he had 17 lawyers wiling to defend him and they managed to get his crime changed from assaulting --> insulting a visiting leader/person (?). I'm just typing this out of memory so there's a good chance my info isn't that accurate though...
Lauren Strojny- I think that three years in jail is too much considering he had a dozen lawyers wanting to represent him in court, you would think they would have be able to get him a smaller sentence.
He definately lost his battle when he refused to apologize and blamed his action on wanting to humiliate Bush the way he humiliated Iraqi's people. Either way whether we think it right or not this man is spending three years locked up.
Just a side note :I thought it was entertaining; I read online that in the muslim world the punishment is the same as what you did. So in turn Bush had the chance to throw his shoes at the journalist. Although his shoes probably cost a good sum of money.
I think that he shouldn't go to jail for three years. Three years is a lot for just throwing shoes at someone, and many people saw him as a hero for what he did.
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