Muntadhar al-Zaidi
Iraqi journalist (born 1979)
Muntadhar al-Zaidi (Arabic: منتظر الزيدي, romanized: Muntaẓar az-Zaydī; born 15 January 1979) is an Iraqi broadcast journalist who served as a correspondent for Iraqi-owned, Egypt-based Al-Baghdadia TV. As of February 2011, al-Zaidi worked with a Lebanese TV channel.
After the U.S. invasion of Iraq, al-Zaidi became a journalist, and wrote a story on a schoolgirl shot by American forces, who attempted to cover up the incident. Aftwards, on 16 November 2007, al-Zaidi was kidnapped by unknown assailants in Baghdad likely affiliated with the Iraqi government, and arrested by United States Armed Forces. On 14 December 2008, al-Zaidi threw his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush during a Baghdad press conference while shouting, "This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog." Al-Zaidi suffered injuries as he was taken into custody and some sources said that he was tortured during his initial detention. There were calls throughout the Middle East to place the shoes in an Iraqi museum, but the shoes were later destroyed by U.S. and Iraqi security forces. Al-Zaidi's shoeing inspired many similar incidents of political protest around the world.
Following the incident, al-Zaidi was represented by the head of the Iraqi Bar Association at his trial. On 20 February 2009, al-Zaidi received a 90-minute trial by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq. On 12 March 2009, he was sentenced to three years in prison for assaulting a foreign head of state during an official visit. On 7 April, the sentence was reduced to one year.
“Muntadhar al-Zaidi” enters the record as iraqi journalist (born 1979). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Muntadhar, al-Zaidi and Iraqi can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Muntadhar al-Zaidi” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Muntadhar, al-Zaidi and Iraqi provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q205360. VIAF identifies the subject as 186149844936002960001. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1979, 2011, 2007 and 2008.
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This entry incorporates text from “Muntadhar al-Zaidi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.