Sayed Pervez Kambaksh is an Afghan journalism student recently sentenced to death by an Islamic court for offending Islam, essentially blasphemy.
According to The Independent, Kambaksh's crime consisted of downloading and distributing a report he obtained from the internet.
"He was accused of blasphemy after he downloaded a report from a Farsi website that stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed.
According to The Independent, Kambaksh's crime consisted of downloading and distributing a report he obtained from the internet.
"He was accused of blasphemy after he downloaded a report from a Farsi website that stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed.
Kambaksh, 23, distributed the tract to fellow students and teachers at Balkh University with the aim, he said, of provoking a debate on the matter. But a complaint was made against him, and he was arrested, tried by religious judges without -- say his friends and family -- being allowed legal representation and sentenced to death.
The United Nations, human rights groups, journalists' organizations and Western diplomats have urged Karzai's government to intervene and free him. But the Afghan Senate passed a motion yesterday confirming the death sentence.
The MP who proposed the ruling condemning Kambaksh was Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, a key ally of Karzai. The Senate also attacked the international community for putting pressure on the Afghan government and urged Karzai not to be influenced by outside non-Islamic views.
Kambaksh's brother, Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, is also a journalist and has written articles for IWPR in which he accused senior public figures, including an MP, of atrocities, including murders. He said: "Of course we are all very worried about my brother. What has happened to him is very unjust. He has not committed blasphemy, and he was not even allowed to have a legal defense. And what took place was a secret trial."
Qayoum Baabak, the editor of Jahan-i-Naw, said a senior prosecutor in Mazar-i-Sharif, Hafiz Khaliqyar, had warned journalists that they would be punished if they protested against the death sentence passed on Kambaksh.
So, this is the grand, democratic Afghanistan our soldiers are dying to defend? This rabid fundamentalist, vile, corrupt, narco-state? The notion of a decent Afghanistan worthy of joining the community of nations is slipping through our fingers and the troubles don't lie just across the border in Pakistan but also in the mosques of Afghanistan and in its central government palaces in Kabul. Our side in this civil war, the thugs we put into power after driving the Taliban out, are reminding us that neither side was worth saving.
2 comments:
It's disturbing, no doubt about it. But let's not paint the country with broad strokes. This is one case which reflects badly on the mission and hopefully Karzai will figure it out before it hurts foreign support.
Hi Raphe. If this was an isolated case I'd agree with you, but it's not. Just a few miles away from the Canadian base in Kandahar sits a women's prison whose inmates include girls, some as young as 12, imprisoned for refusing their fathers' attempts to sell or trade them to other old men. This country is embracing a fundamentalist feudalism where, on the floor of parliament, male representatives can stand and say that female legislators should be raped for speaking out of line. We don't hear nearly enough about the rotten state of human rights in this state. But, then again, human rights aren't compatible with criminal organizations.
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