(CNN) -- They've sung his praises on social networking pages, calling him a "hero," "the greatest man of our time," "a legend." They've said he deserves to be knighted and should be decorated with medals. They've cried out for his amnesty and have even proposed serving time for him. A Lebanese student in Beirut attends a December rally to support the shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist. The man many hundreds of thousands of Facebook users honor is no other than Muntadhar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison for hurling his shoes at then-U.S. President George W. Bush.
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Muntadhar al-Zaidi, who threw his shoes at President Bush, gains cult-like following
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Hundreds of thousands of Facebook users join groups to praise the Iraqi journalist
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Fans extend beyond the Muslim and Arab worlds, politically and comically
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But seriousness of his actions leads to three-year prison sentence
But what @placeholder has shown is that al-Zaidi's angry expression resonated with those beyond his religion and region.
"I understand that his act was not so civil, polite or 'politically correct,' but I also understand how @placeholder people can see George Bush and what he represents to them."