[Marxism] Heroic Iraqi who protested Bush reported beaten in custody

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Iraq military questions Bush shoe protester
Hundreds protest for second day in support of journalist
Brother claims al-Zaidi was beaten in custody
Mark Tran guardian.co.uk, 
Tuesday 16 December 2008 13.25 GMT  

The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush has been beaten in
custody, his brother said today.

Muntadhar al-Zaidi suffered a broken hand, broken ribs and internal
bleeding, as well as an eye injury, his older brother, Dargham, told the
BBC.

Zaidi emerged as an unlikely hero in the Arab world, with tens of thousands
demonstrating for his release, after he threw both his shoes at the US
president at a press conference in Baghdad, calling him a dog. As he was
handed over to the Iraqi military hundreds protested for a second day at his
detention.

Zaidi, who forced the US president to duck at the event as it was televised
live, was turned over by the prime minister's security guards to face
further investigation by the military command in charge of enforcing
security in Baghdad.

Iraqi security took Zaidi into custody and interrogated him about whether
anybody had paid him to throw his shoes at Bush on Sunday, according to
unnamed officials. He could face charges of insulting a foreign leader and
the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who was standing next to Bush.
The offence carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail.

As Zaidi faced further questioning, Iraqis continued to voice their support
for the 28-year-old journalist, whose gesture has come to distil Iraqi anger
at the US in general and Bush in particular. In Mosul, Iraq's third largest
city, an estimated 1,000 protesters carried banners and chanted slogans
demanding al-Zaidi's release.

A couple of hundred more also protested in the mainly Shia city of
Nassiriya, south-east of Baghdad, and Sunni Falluja, west of the capital.

"Muntadhar al-Zaidi has expressed the feelings and ambitions of the Iraqi
people toward the symbol of tyranny," Nassar Afrawi, a protester in
Nassiriya, told the Associated Press.

In Baghdad, the head of the Iraqi union of journalists described Zaidi's
action as "strange and unprofessional" but urged clemency.

"Even if he has committed a mistake, the government and the judiciary are
broad minded and we hope they consider his release because he has a family
and he is still young," Mouyyad al-Lami told Associated Press's television
news. "We hope this case ends before going to court."

Ten of thousands of people throughout Iraq have demonstrated in support of
Zaidi. Throwing shoes is a deep insult in the Arab world, and Iraqis showed
their contempt for Saddam Hussein when they removed their shoes to beat his
statue with when Baghdad fell to US forces in 2003.

Dargham al-Zaidi told the BBC that he believed his brother had now been
taken to a US military hospital in the Iraqi capital. Despite offers from
many lawyers his brother had not been given access to any since being
arrested by forces under the command of Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, Iraq's national
security adviser.

Bush's valedictory tour of the two main fronts in the "war on terror", Iraq
and Afghanistan, was aimed at enhancing his legacy as he approaches his last
month in office. But optimistic talk of progress on the battlefield was
overshadowed by Zaidi's surprise action.

Both shoes missed their target - one went high, and the president ducked the
other - and Bush did his best to laugh the whole incident off. "I saw his
sole," he joked. But Bush is unlikely to escape the image of a US president
cowering behind a lectern watched


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