Skip to main content

Green Party condemns harsh sentence for Iraqi shoe-thrower [Media release]

 

The Green Party is extremely concerned at the 3-year jail sentence that has just been handed down to Muntadar Al-Zaidi, for throwing his shoes at Former-U.S.-President George Bush.

 

Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner and Oxford East Parliamentary candidate for the Green Party, explained why the Party is backing the shoe-thrower:

 

"Mr al-Zaidi's protest was a courageous, symbolic gesture to challenge the US President's illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, the mass civilian casualties caused by the war, the use of torture by US military forces and the US attempt to rip off Iraq's oil wealth.

 

"His heroic action was in the fine traditions of the young men who burned their draft cards to protest against the US war in Vietnam and of the Black Power salutes by Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico Olympics in protest at the racist discrimination suffered by African-Americans.

 

"Mr al-Zaidi's action did not physically harm anyone or cause any damage – only embarrassment to President Bush and the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki. Causing embarrassment should not be a crime. To send him to jail for three years over this protest is wholly disproportionate, and unbefitting of Iraq's new democracy," said Mr Tatchell.

 

Norwich Green councillor Rupert Read, the Green Party's lead candidate for the Eastern Region in the June 2009 European Parliament elections, who has posted a pair of his old shoes to Gordon Brown and George Bush [http://tinyurl.com/82tq8n ], added, "Is this why 'the allies' invaded Iraq? So that a journalist could be thrown into prison for three years for a brief and harmless bit of free speech?"

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Post-Growth: A new vision for a fairer and more sustainable Britain

Post a Comment
Read more

More on why 20's plenty -- without need for any further 'trials'...

There are a number of reasons for setting a default speed of 20mph throughout the 'unclassified' road network in residential parts of a city such as Norwich. Most important perhaps is that of driver recognition as to what the speed limit is. If you have 20 mph as the default then you not only establish this limit clearly, but you also adjust the driver's recognition as to what is the "normal" speed in such residential areas. The most important aspect is that drivers set 20 mph as the norm with those 30 mph areas or roads being seen as 50% faster, rather than seeing 30 mph as the norm with 20 mph as 33% slower. The psychological adjustment of normal speeds in residential areas is key to the success of reducing speeds and therefore danger to pedestrians and cyclists. Therefore any trial, pilot or whatever, that only implements 20 mph in a tiny proportion of the city is not modelling 20's Plenty in any realistic manner.   When considering the val...
2 comments
Read more