The Hurler On The Ditch

...al-Asaadi [ the editor of the pro-government Yemen Observer newspaper] has not been party to the sort of controversies that have seen many Yemeni journalists jailed in recent years. But when his newspaper ran an article about the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist, Asaadi decided to reprint the cartoons—albeit with a large X censoring most of them, and an article denouncing them. On Feb. 11, he was arrested and charged with insulting the Prophet. He is now in jail in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, awaiting trial...

...Some hard-line preachers at Friday prayers called for your execution; some even suggested death by beheading or immolation. Aren't you afraid for your future, in or out of jail?

Of course I'm afraid. I'll have to take precautions when I go to and from my office and travel around in the future. But Yemenis as a whole are very moderate, and I know I can persuade any reasonable person that I did nothing wrong. And I believe in God. What I did was in defense of the Prophet, and I don't think God will let me down for doing that.