Two Jordanian tabloid editors have been arrested after their newspapers were the only Arab-based publications to print controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, a source said. The caricatures, which included depictions of the Muslim prophet as a knife-wielding bedouin and another as wearing a time bomb-shaped turban, have sparked widespread protests in the Muslim world.Hashem al-Khalidi, editor-in-chief of a weekly tabloid called Al-Mehwar which printed the cartoons in its 26 January edition, was arrested shortly before midnight on Saturday (2200 GMT), the source close to Khalidi told AFP. Jihad Momani, the former editor-in-chief who was sacked on Friday from the helm of the weekly gossip newspaper Shihane, was earlier arrested on the order of prosecutors for having printed three of the cartoons, a judicial source told AFP.
Shihane published the drawings on Thursday, and the paper's publisher subsequently pulled all editions from the newsstands. The cartoons had appeared along an editorial by Momani appealing to Muslims to "be reasonable."
| So much for that idea. |
| You'd think they would have known better. |