Thousands of Iraqis have demonstrated in Baghdad's Sadr City in support of a journalist being held in custody after throwing his shoes at George Bush, the US president.
The first three images in this NYT photo gallery are about the shoe-tossing.
Muntazer al-Zeidi was detained for what the Iraqi government on Monday said was a "barbaric and ignominious act" during a news conference the previous day. ...
"Millions of Iraqis or rather millions of the people of the world wish to do what Muntadhar did," Uday al-Zeidi, Mundathar's brother, said on Monday.
Thank God he had the guts to do it and avenge the Iraqi people and the country from those who plunder it and have killed its people."
Al-Baghdadiya television, his employer, has demanded his release after Yasin Majeed, the prime minister's media adviser, said al-Zeidi would be tried on charges of insulting the state.An Iraqi lawyer told the AFP news agency that Zeidi risked a miminum of two years in prison if he is prosecuted for insulting a visiting head of state.
Hate to say it, but what Muntazer al-Zeidi did was a criminal act, regardless of whether it's George Bush or anyone else who's the target.
Any Canadian journalist who pulled a similar stunt would face prosecution and would probably find themselves virtually unemployable.
OTOH, when you trigger a needless war, based on lies, that leads to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, it would seem prudent to suspect some might greet you as a conqueror and not a liberator.