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Journos sentenced over cartoons
13/12/2006 13:55 - (SA)
Sanaa - The editor of a Yemeni newspaper and one of his journalists were given four-month suspended sentences on Wednesday for publishing offensive cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed, judicial sources said.
Akram Sabra, editor of weekly Al-Hurriya, and Yahia al-Abed were also sentenced to a ban on writing for one month and the newspaper was suspended for one month. Those sentences were also suspended.
Al-Hurriya was the third Yemeni newspaper to fall foul of the law over the cartoons, which were initially published in Danish newspapers and sparked a wave of protests across the Muslim world earlier this year.
On December 6, a court fined the editor of the Yemen Observer weekly for reprinting the cartoons, saying they constituted a crime but not apostasy (the formal renunciation of one's religion).
The court ordered Mohammed al-Assadi to be held pending payment of a fine equivalent to $2 500 or the verdict being overturned on appeal.
In November, Kamal al-Olfi, editor of Al-Rai Al-Aam, was sentenced to a year in jail, banned from writing for six months and had his private weekly newspaper closed.
But Attorney General Abdullah al-Olfi ordered Olfi's release two hours after sentencing, effectively reducing the penalty to closure of the newspaper and the writing ban.
All three newspapers were temporarily suspended earlier in the year for reprinting the cartoons.
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