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Sentenced to Death: Afghan Who Dared to Read About Women's Rights
A young man, a student of journalism, is sentenced to death by an Islamic court for downloading a report from the internet. The sentence is then upheld by the country's rulers. This is Afghanistan - not in Taliban times but six years after "liberation" and under the democratic rule of the West's ally Hamid Karzai.
The fate of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has led to domestic and international protests, and deepening concern about erosion of civil liberties in Afghanistan. He was accused of blasphemy after he downloaded a report from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed.
Mr 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 Independent is launching a campaign today to secure justice for Mr Kambaksh. The UN, human rights groups, journalists' organisations and Western diplomats have urged Mr 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 Mr Kambaksh was Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, a key ally of Mr Karzai. The Senate also attacked the international community for putting pressure on the Afghan government and urged Mr Karzai not to be influenced by outside un-Islamic views.
The case of Mr Kambaksh, who also worked a s reporter for the Jahan-i-Naw (New World) newspaper, is seen in Afghanistan as yet another chapter in the escalation in the confrontation between Afghanistan and the West.
It comes in the wake of Mr Karzai accusing the British of actually worsening the situation in Helmand province by their actions and his subsequent blocking of the appointment of Lord Ashdown as the UN envoy and expelling a British and an Irish diplomat.
Demonstrations, organised by clerics, against the alleged foreign interference have been held in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, where Mr Kambaksh was arrested. Aminuddin Muzafari, the first secretary of the houses of parliament, said: "People should realise that as we are representatives of an Islamic country therefore we can never tolerate insults to reverences of Islamic religion."
At a gathering in Takhar province, Maulavi Ghulam Rabbani Rahmani, the heads of the Ulema council, said: "We want the government and the courts to execute the court verdict on Kambaksh as soon as possible." In Parwan province, another senior cleric, Maulavi Muhammad Asif, said: "This decision is for disrespecting the holy Koran and the government should enforce the decision before it came under more pressure from foreigners."
UK officials say they are particularly concerned about such draconian action being taken against a journalist. The Foreign Office and Department for International Development has donated large sums to the training of media workers in the country. The Government funds the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in the Helmand capital, Lashkar Gar.
Mr 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 defence. 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 Mr Kambaksh.
Jean MacKenzie, country director for IWPR, said: "We feel very strongly that this is designed to put pressure on Pervez's brother, Yaqub, who has done some of the hardest-hitting pieces outlining abuses by some very powerful commanders."
Rahimullah Samander, the president of the Afghan Independent Journalists' Association, said: "This is unfair, this is illegal. He just printed a copy of something and looked at it and read it. How can we believe in this 'democracy' if we can't even read, we can't even study? We are asking Mr Karzai to quash the death sentence before it is too late."
The circumstances surrounding the conviction of Mr Kambaksh are also being viewed as a further attempt to claw back the rights gained by women since the overthrow of the Taliban. The most prominent female MP, Malalai Joya, has been suspended after criticising her male colleagues.
Under the Afghan constitution, say legal experts, Mr Kambaksh has the right to appeal to the country's supreme court. Some senior clerics maintain, however, that since he has been convicted under religious laws, the supreme court should not bring secular interpretations to the case.
Mr Karzai has the right to intervene and pardon Mr Kambaksh. However, even if he is freed, it would be hard for the student to escape retribution in a country where fundamentalists and warlords are increasingly in the ascendancy.
How you can save Pervez
Sayed Pervez Kambaksh's imminent execution is an affront to civilised values. It is not, however, a foregone conclusion. If enough international pressure is brought to bear on President Karzai's government, his sentence may yet be overturned. Add your weight to the campaign by urging the Foreign Office to demand that his life be spared. Sign our e-petition at www.independent.co.uk/petition
© 2008 The Independent
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19 Comments so far
Show AllSo much for "women's rights" when Sharia is enthroned in the Constitution of a country
We've killed thousands and spent billions for this?
If Islam or Islamic countries are to be "modernized" only Muslims can do it. Sadly, when it comes, it will probably be violent, like the European Reformation.
We cannot be the cops (or saviors) of the world – trying merely invites blowback and distracts attention from the people's domestic oppressors. Arming them only keeps them in power. The best we can hope to do is to provide succor to the victims.
Peace.
Got Metta?
"Intolerance is the natural concomitant of strong faith; tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty; certainty is murderous" - Will Durant
Remember when Laura Bush went to Afghanistan because she suypposedly cared so much about women there? WOnder how often she worries about them or ever tries to do anything to help them. She's just as bad as Dumbya is.
Has anyone ever noticed how glassy and vacant her eyes are? Do you think it's drugs or stupidity? Tough call!
Good point, I don't think we can be the saviors or the world though. People have to change their own minds. And first they have to USE them, like Mr. Kambaksh did.
Imagine, we have always supported dictators, oppressive governments, that kill their own people for the sake of maintaining power. And the United States is getting closer to that point (if not there already).
so it goes...
Afghanis also have a sport where they cut the head off a calf and play soccer with the corpse.
They also like to blow up ancient rock carvings because it offends the supreme deity(although Mullah Omar has stated he ordered it because he was so pissed off that western people were more concerned about statues than starving people in Afghanistan).
Canada's foreign affairs minister:
bernier.maxime@ic.gc.ca
I got this email address off a blog, i cant seem to find his email address anywhere on the canadian governement website. Im not sure this is the right email though, but the only one i could find.
Please take a minute and sign the independent UK petition to prevent Sayed's death.
13,000 signatures as of now.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/article775954.ece
Sorry for the triple post
If this is what our soldiers have died for and the disgusting amount of money that has been spent to bring this country into the present, then our incompetent President and his office MUST be brought to account! Our Congress has looked the other way long enough, let them know how you feel.
The email of Maxime Bernier provided a few comments up is not the right one. For some reason my "seconds left to edit" is going down at breakneck speed so i didnt get to edit it.
I thought 'we' were spending time, money and energy in Afghanistan to eradicate muslim fundametalism. How bad are the Taliban if the government we're supposed to be helping behaves like this.
I think Sayed Pervez Kambaksh should be released at once; and if this so-called government is not willing to do so, force should be used (we have troops there, don't we?). If we're not willing to do so, getting the troops out ASAP is the only option.
As long as the West goes along with the calculation that dates back to the British Raj era: that the Pashtun (Karzai is a Pashtun) rule Afghanistan, then the West is stuck with all their baggage. That includes adherence to Puktanwali (their barbaric tribal code who's backwardness is only matched in the Muslim world by Wahabbism) and their determination to enforce its' ludicrous strictures no matter the embarrassment. Also aggravating Kambaksh's case was the fact he downloaded from a Farsi-language site. If the Pashtun's had their way, all speakers of Dari (the Afghani version of Farsi) would be wiped out. As long as the West continues to rely solely on Pashtun proxies in Afghanistan, incidents like this will continue.
Glad to see our campaign to bring democracy and human rights to the Muslim world is going so well. As the people of that region learn to respect diversity and tolerance and . . . wait . . . out! Out, damned spirit! There, that's better. I was temporarily possessed by a neocon. Getting back to reality . . . damn, this is sooo depressing. Maybe being possessed by a neocon wasn't so bad after all. Where's my koolade?
Meredoo, you are right about Laura Bush's eyes. Her whole persona creeps me. She looks like she should be in a wax museum.
Kelmer you're a racist.
Taliban are supported by Pakistan prior to that those Buddhas stood in Afghanistan for nearly 2000 years untouched. They were in school children's textbooks and people took pride in them as a national symbol. The sport you are referring to is Buzkashi. The British, when they conquered Afghanistan noticed this sport and turned it into what westerners know as Polo.
As for the article lets remember this is a man, Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, is standing up for women's rights. He's courageous. My Afghan husband would do the same. Stop stereotyping that all Afghan men are anti-women. Many are fighting for equality of their women and against the radical fundamentalists which have destroyed thier country and thier traditional culture. We should be supporting and applauding men like Sayed not hating on them.
I guess for some people like Kelmer and several other posters its easier to hate a whole race of people, a people who have suffered nearly 30 years of war and lost family and friends, thier hope and their dignity then applaud courage.
The problem is that almost all Muslims regard the Koran and Hadith as authoritative and binding, and the death penalty for apostasy, blasphemy, adultery by women and other seemingly trivial offenses is death. It is not always practiced, but they believe it to be divinely ordained, so the most we can expect is ambivalence. Our notions of human rights, indeed of right and wrong, are markedly different from theirs. And the more pressure we put on them with war and repression, the more we drive them into fundamentalism. Modernization and secularization might help, but remember that most of the 9/11 hijackers were well educated and from prosperous families.
Our country sets the example, arrests, torture, no lawyers and no trial. Ever think this is the direction our fascists leaders want it to go?
I agree that not all Afghan men are anti-women, anymore than all Americans are Christian fundamentalists, even though one of them happens to be sitting in the oval office right now. I believe, however, that most Americans, progressive and conservative, greatly overestimate the ability of our nation to direct the development of other peoples' cultures in a positive (by our standards) direction. At any given time, in any given country, it's possible to find those who believe that their nation would benefit from foreign intervention. However, as the French learned in Mexico in the 1860s, the United States learned in Vietnam in the 1960s, and the Russians learned in Afghanistan in the 1980s (a heyday for women's rights in that country, if I've read correctly), those opinions usually turn out to be in the minority. Regardless of the intentions of the foreign power, people eventually resent having their affairs directed from afar, even if it results in improved living conditions. Often, in fact, the foreign intervention undermines indigenous progressive movements by linking them and their ideas with the hated "occupiers." It was wrong for the U.S. to use Afghanistan as a proxy battlefield during the Cold War, but ultimately the Afghan people will have to come to their own understanding regarding the mixture of politics and religion in their country (just as, I might point out, we in the United States need to do).
At least he knew what the deal was, on the other hand there are people in america on death row who don't have a clue why they have been convicted.