{"id":163,"date":"2008-12-21T12:16:15","date_gmt":"2008-12-21T12:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/the-shoe-thrower-is-sorry.html"},"modified":"2008-12-21T12:16:15","modified_gmt":"2008-12-21T12:16:15","slug":"the-shoe-thrower-is-sorry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/the-shoe-thrower-is-sorry.html","title":{"rendered":"the shoe-thrower is sorry"},"content":{"rendered":"

If this is sincere<\/a>, then good:<\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

An
\nIraqi journalist arrested after throwing his shoes at George Bush, the
\nUS president, has reportedly sent a letter to the Iraqi prime minister
\nto apologise for the incident and seek a pardon.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, said on
\nThursday that Muntazer al-Zaidi had acknowledged his shoe-throwing
\nduring a news conference in Baghdad as “an ugly act”.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Yasin
\nMajeed, al-Maliki’s media adviser, told the Reuters news agency that
\n“al-Zaidi said in his letter that his big ugly act cannot be excused”.<\/p>\n

According to Majeed, al-Zaidi asked the prime minister to recall the
\nkindness al-Maliki showed him during a 2005 interview when he invited
\nthe journalist to his home.<\/p>\n

“I appeal to your fatherly feelings to forgive me,” al-Zaidi was quoted as saying by Majeed.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

However, Dhargham al-Zaidi, the journalist’s brother, questioned whether the statement was genuine.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, he is being held by the Maliki government, so it’s equally likely he’s been roughed up, in which case this is just making the whole thing worse (and kind of proving his point in throwing the shoes in the first place, actually).<\/p>\n

UPDATE: Yes, looks like he was beaten while in captivity<\/a>, quite severely. As Thabet at Talk Islam wryly observes<\/a>, “Under Saddam he would have been killed. Under the Newly Liberated Government Of Iraq, he ‘only’ gets a beating. At least that’s progress.” No wonder al-Zaidi is an instant hero to the Arab world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If this is sincere, then good: An Iraqi journalist arrested after throwing his shoes at George Bush, the US president, has reportedly sent a letter to the Iraqi prime minister to apologise for the incident and seek a pardon. A spokesman for Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, said on Thursday that Muntazer al-Zaidi had acknowledged…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[120,26,171],"class_list":["post-163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nation-building","tag-iraq","tag-politics","tag-president-bush"],"yoast_head":"\nthe shoe-thrower is sorry - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"the shoe-thrower is sorry - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If this is sincere, then good: An Iraqi journalist arrested after throwing his shoes at George Bush, the US president, has reportedly sent a letter to the Iraqi prime minister to apologise for the incident and seek a pardon. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}