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San Francisco Chronicle business and technology reporter Henry Norr has been suspended for two weeks without pay after having been arrested in an anti-war protest in downtown San Francisco, the Mercury News reports.

The suspension is mired in controversy, because Norr's employers claim he was disciplined not for the protest arrest, but for time card misrepresentations:

"Norr said he had taken to the streets March 19 -- the day the war began -- and e-mailed his bosses that evening that he intended to 'get arrested the following morning and wouldn't be in until I got out of jail.'

Joe Brown, the Chronicle's director of public relations, said Norr was suspended for notating sick time on his time card to cover his day in jail March 20.

But Norr and his union say he was up front with his bosses about what he was doing and would have taken a day off or a vacation day if told that was appropriate."

Comments: Nothing in Norr's duties for the Chronicle involved reporting on the war in Iraq, as far as we can tell, and even if that were the case, punishing him at work for expressing a political view on what he thought was his own time is a dangerous way to proceed in a democracy. We think the Chronicle should reconsider.

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