Iraq’s federal appeals court has announced that the sentence of Muntadhar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at former U.S. President George W. Bush, has been reduced from three years to one year. Al-Zaidi’s heroic act of resistance occurred during a December 2008 press conference in Iraq where then-President Bush was arrogantly delivering a “good-bye” speech that justified the multiple war crimes his administration committed against the Iraqi people. Instantly, Al-Zaidi became a national and regional hero for standing up to the brutal U.S. occupation of Iraq. The prison term was reduced as a result of the massive amount of popular support for al-Zaidi’s action. The day after he was sentenced to three years in prison, thousands of people flooded into the streets of the Middle East and beyond in protest. The reduction of the sentence is welcome news, but Al-Zaidi should not have had to spend one more second in jail.
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