Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [75]
I first accompany him to court in early November. “I just want a verdict,” he says. “But I know they are just going to postpone again.” Faris claims that the delays are beneficial because they give the fanatics time to calm down and lose interest in the case. I repeat this to al-Asaadi, but it doesn’t seem to quell his anxiety. Though al-Asaadi and I are increasingly at odds over how to run the paper, we put aside our differences when the trial date comes up. Neither of us wants to lose our job and I certainly do not want al-Asaadi sent back to prison—or worse, put to death.
One of the Yemen Observer’s early stories on the case (the paper continued to publish on the Web after it was shut down) reported that twenty-one lawyers for the prosecution called for the death penalty for al-Asaadi, as well as the permanent closure of the newspaper and the confiscation of all of its assets. The lawyers “recounted a story in which a lady was killed during the Prophet’s lifetime after she insulted him, and that the Prophet then praised the killer. They said that they wanted the same punishment to be applied on ‘those who abuse the Prophet’ (PBUH).” This drives home to me the very real risk my reporters are taking by attempting to report what goes on in the world.
My reporters always follow the name of the prophet in their copy with PBUH, for “peace be upon Him.” I am unsure how to deal with this. To me, newspapers are secular, reporting objectively on all issues, including religion. So for the paper to wish peace upon the prophet at first strikes me as editorializing. The articles about the cartoons naturally include scores of “PBUH”s in a concerted effort to prove how unlikely it is that the paper would insult the prophet.
The first few times I encounter “PBUH,” I delete it, and no one complains. But eventually, this strikes me as overly pedantic. I am living in an entirely Muslim country. Does it hurt anyone to allow the “PBUH” to stay? Will this put the paper on the slippery slope to promoting a religion? My fears that the paper is biased toward religion feel slightly ridiculous in a uniformly religious society. I resolve to overcome my knee-jerk secularism. Besides, until our court case is over, I’m not taking unnecessary risks.
According to the Observer, lawyers for the prosecution also demanded “personal financial compensation for the psychological trauma they claimed they suffered by the actions of the newspaper, which they said has impaired their ability to do their jobs and follow their normal daily lives.”
This is laughable. Reprinting the cartoons has psychologically dismantled the extremists? How mentally healthy can they have been to begin with if a mere cartoon can unhinge them? I despair of the Arab world ever achieving press freedom.
The defense team pointed out that the newspaper had condemned the cartoons, had defended Islam and the prophet, and had reported the different reactions from all across the Arab and Islamic world. But the prosecution said their case rested on the cartoons alone and that the accompanying articles were irrelevant.
The Ministry of Information first revoked the newspaper’s license on February 8, 2006. At the same time, al-Rai al-‘Aam, another weekly that reprinted the cartoons, was also shut down. And al-Hurriyah weekly not only lost its license, but its editor was jailed along with his assistant.
Prison had a profound effect on al-Asaadi. The following is an excerpt from a personal account he wrote of his incarceration, which we published on the anniversary of his arrest.
I held my breath as I was locked in a dark room in the basement of the same building, where I was interrogated…. Fifteen people were in that dark and dirty room. Some people, who were still asleep, though it was midday, were interrupted by noise. The inmates recognized that the new comer was a high-profile person as a result of the protest that could be seen from the only window in the room. “Who are you and why are you here?” I was asked by the inmates. I revealed my profession but concealed my name and the reason