Shoes Thrower
Free Zaidi call by Iraq clerics
BAGHDAD: Clerics yesterday called for the release of the Iraqi journalist sentenced to three years in prison for throwing his shoes at George W Bush.
Sheikh Suhail Al Iqabi, a follower of anti-US cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, said the sentence against Muntadhar Al Zaidi is "a verdict against the Iraqi people who refuse the American occupation" of Iraq.
Efforts to release detained Sadrists and others who have opposed the American presence in the country also should be expedited, Al Iqabi said in his sermon in Baghdad's Shi'ite stronghold of Sadr City.
Al Zaidi's brazen act during a December news conference by then-US president Bush and Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki has turned the 30-year-old reporter into a folk hero across the Arab world, where Bush is reviled for the invasion of Iraq.
Another Shi'ite cleric in the Sadrist stronghold of Kufa also condemned the prison sentence. "We just wonder on what law the judge has based his sentence. Was this verdict taken to satisfy their masters?" Sheikh Abdul-Hadi Al Mohammadawi said during a sermon. "Why do you not try the Americans who are killing the Iraqi people in cold blood?"
Expressing their own freedom on Facebook, a worldwide fan base has risen up to laud Al Zaidi's actions. They formed hundreds of fan pages and groups, big and small, serious and light. One is even called the "Shoe-Throwing Appreciation Society."
They've sung his praises , calling him a "hero," "the greatest man of our time," "a legend." They've said he deserves to be knighted and should be decorated with medals. They've cried out for his amnesty and have even proposed serving time for him.
Mike Trainor, 28, was watching a football game when a news break brought footage of the incident across his TV screen.
"I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen," said Trainor, a Queens, New York, stand-up comedian behind "Guy Who Threw His Shoes at Bush," which has attracted nearly 270,000 fans.
In violence reported by Iraqi police, a bomb exploded in the southern Baghdad neighbourhood of Dora, killing a woman and wounding a boy.
A roadside bomb also struck a police patrol in eastern Baghdad, wounding four officers.
Amnesty International, meanwhile, called on the Iraqi government to stop the execution of 128 prisoners on death row, saying the country's judicial system is ill-equipped to provide a fair trial.
The rights organisation said the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council had informed it that authorities were planning to carry out the death sentences in batches of 20 per week.
At least 34 of 285 people sentenced to death were executed last year, while at least 33 of 199 people sentenced to death were executed in 2007 and 65 people were put to death in 2006, according to the group.
BAGHDAD: Clerics yesterday called for the release of the Iraqi journalist sentenced to three years in prison for throwing his shoes at George W Bush.
Sheikh Suhail Al Iqabi, a follower of anti-US cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, said the sentence against Muntadhar Al Zaidi is "a verdict against the Iraqi people who refuse the American occupation" of Iraq.
Efforts to release detained Sadrists and others who have opposed the American presence in the country also should be expedited, Al Iqabi said in his sermon in Baghdad's Shi'ite stronghold of Sadr City.
Al Zaidi's brazen act during a December news conference by then-US president Bush and Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki has turned the 30-year-old reporter into a folk hero across the Arab world, where Bush is reviled for the invasion of Iraq.
Another Shi'ite cleric in the Sadrist stronghold of Kufa also condemned the prison sentence. "We just wonder on what law the judge has based his sentence. Was this verdict taken to satisfy their masters?" Sheikh Abdul-Hadi Al Mohammadawi said during a sermon. "Why do you not try the Americans who are killing the Iraqi people in cold blood?"
Expressing their own freedom on Facebook, a worldwide fan base has risen up to laud Al Zaidi's actions. They formed hundreds of fan pages and groups, big and small, serious and light. One is even called the "Shoe-Throwing Appreciation Society."
They've sung his praises , calling him a "hero," "the greatest man of our time," "a legend." They've said he deserves to be knighted and should be decorated with medals. They've cried out for his amnesty and have even proposed serving time for him.
Mike Trainor, 28, was watching a football game when a news break brought footage of the incident across his TV screen.
"I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen," said Trainor, a Queens, New York, stand-up comedian behind "Guy Who Threw His Shoes at Bush," which has attracted nearly 270,000 fans.
In violence reported by Iraqi police, a bomb exploded in the southern Baghdad neighbourhood of Dora, killing a woman and wounding a boy.
A roadside bomb also struck a police patrol in eastern Baghdad, wounding four officers.
Amnesty International, meanwhile, called on the Iraqi government to stop the execution of 128 prisoners on death row, saying the country's judicial system is ill-equipped to provide a fair trial.
The rights organisation said the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council had informed it that authorities were planning to carry out the death sentences in batches of 20 per week.
At least 34 of 285 people sentenced to death were executed last year, while at least 33 of 199 people sentenced to death were executed in 2007 and 65 people were put to death in 2006, according to the group.
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