Russian editor fined over prophet cartoons
A Russian court today convicted and fined the editor of a newspaper who was charged with inciting religious strife by publishing the Prophet Muhammad cartoons two months ago.
The Vologda city court found weekly Nash Region editor Anna Smirnova guilty of deliberately stirring up religious hatred and intolerance, as well as abuse of her position. She was ordered to pay 100,000 rubles (€2,978) in fines.
Smirnova’s husband, who owned the now-defunct weekly, called the ruling “absurd” and said she would appeal.
President Vladimir Putin has condemned any publication of the cartoons, apparently out of concern that it could destabilise Russia, which has about 20 million Muslim residents – nearly 14% of the population.
“On the contrary, the publication was aimed against stirring up religious hatred,” Smirnova’s husband Mikhail Smirnov told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Vologda.
The paper, based in the city about 500 miles north of Moscow, published a collage of the cartoons on February 15 as part of an article examining the furore over the drawings, which were first printed in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September.
The publication was the first appearance of the drawings in a Russian paper. Smirnov closed the paper when the scandal erupted.
Also in February, the mayor of the southern city of Volgograd ordered the closure of the city-owned newspaper Gorodskiye Vesti after it published a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
