AFP
 
Minsk, Jan 19: A journalist in ex-Soviet Belarus has been sentenced to three years in prison for printing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, his former editor said.
 
Alexander Sdvizhkov, 49, was sentenced on Friday after being found guilty of breaking laws against inciting racial or religious hatred, according to Alexei Karol, editor of the now defunct newspaper Zgoda.

Charges were first filed against Sdvizhkov, the weekly's deputy editor, in February 2006 after he took the decision to print the cartoons.
 
In the event the cartoons were never published as Zgoda's management blocked distribution. But prosecutors started proceedings and closed down the title in March 2006.

The cartoons were copies of those that sparked demonstrations across Europe after publication in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper in 2005.

Sdvizhkov fled to Russia, but was arrested on his return in November 2007.

The government in Belarus, situated between Russia and the European Union, is frequently attacked by human rights organisations and Western governments as repressive.

Under Islam conventions, portraying images of the Prophet is considered blasphemous.

The OSCE's representative for media freedom sharply criticised the sentence.