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| Muntazer al-Zaidi: the shoe-thrower of Baghdad |
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Tuesday, December 16, 2008
BAGHDAD: Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who shot to instant fame for throwing his shoes at US President George W Bush, had long dreamt of a dramatic gesture to symbolise his opposition to the war that brought death and destruction to his country.
Zaidi, 29, a journalist with the independent Iraqi television station Al-Baghdadia based in Egypt, hurled his footwear at Bush on Sunday during a joint news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Although both shoes missed their target, Zaidi captured the world’s attention with an act colleagues said he had plotted for months because he “detested America” and the man who ordered the war on his country.
His brother Durgham said Zaidi had been detained for a day by US forces at the beginning of the year, and that he had been kidnapped in the heart of Baghdad in November 2007 and held for a week by unknown captors.
His simple but devastatingly symbolic act was hailed by many Iraqis, with Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s movement calling him a hero and a Sunni Muslim body labelling him an “icon of the resistance against the occupation.
The Baghdad-born Zaidi lives alone in a furnished two-room apartment in the capital on Rashid Road, the city’s historic centre.
An AFP journalist who visited the building on Monday said his home contained books on politics and religion in both Arabic and English, as well as a photograph of revolutionary icon Che Guevara.
“He devoted most of his time to Al-Baghdadia which he joined at its launch in September 2005,” Zaidi’s 32-year-old brother Durgham told AFP. “He’s a rather nervous type, and above all hates violence and the bombing,” he added.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
