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Sayed Pervez Kambaksh downloaded an article about women's rights from the Internet. For that he faces execution for blasphemy in Brave New Democratic Afghanistan. But international pressure may once again save a life. "Afghan government official says that student will not be executed," by Jerome Starkey and Kim Sengupta in The Independent (thanks to Block Ness):
The condemned student journalist Sayed Pervez Kambaksh will not face execution, a senior government official in Afghanistan indicated yesterday.A ministerial aide, Najib Manalai, insisted: "I am not worried for his life. I'm sure Afghanistan's justice system will find the best way to avoid this sentence."
It was the clearest indication yet that the 23-year-old will have his death penalty revoked amid mounting international pressure on the Afghan authorities.
Mr Kambaksh was condemned to die by an Islamic court for insulting Islam. He was found guilty under sharia law after he distributed articles from the internet on women's rights at Balkh university in northern Afghanistan, an act he claims was aimed at provoking debate. His family say he was not allowed a defence lawyer and the trial was in secret.
The verdict, briefly endorsed by the Afghan senate before it retracted its opinion, caused international protests. More than 63,000 people have signed an Independent petition urging the Foreign Office to put all possible pressure on the Afghan government to prevent the execution. The United Nations' senior human rights advocate, Louise Arbour, has written to the President and his top officials, "reminding them of their responsibilities" under the country's constitution, which enshrines freedom of speech. President Hamid Karzai's staff said he had been inundated by appeals from pressure groups across the globe to pardon the student journalist.
[...]
Mr Manalai is the senior adviser in Afghanistan's Culture Ministry, which is in charge of arbitrating free speech disputes in the media. He condemned the student writer but maintained it was very unlikely he would face the gallows.
He said: "He cannot be defended in any way for what he has done. He was provoking trouble. He was insulting Islam's prophet. This is one of the biggest offences you can make. In Afghan law it is a capital offence. Islamic law allows the death penalty.
"But there's a saying of the Prophet, that you had better avoid applying a penalty because it is better to have someone guilty who has not been punished, than have someone not guilty who has been punished. One court has condemned him, but this is only the first step. We have three stages of justice. I am not worried for his life."
[...]
How you can save Pervez
The Independent campaign to save Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has now attracted more than 63,000 signatures – and the pressure appears to be working.
But the fate of the student whose only crime was to download an article on women's rights remains in doubt. So add your voice to the campaign by urging the Foreign Office to put all possible pressure on the Afghan government to spare his life.
Sign our e-petition at www.independent.co.uk/petition
Posted by Robert at February 6, 2008 3:47 PM
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Pressure may save a life, but the black rotting cancerous heart of Islam remains completely untouched.
Posted by: jsla![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 6, 2008 4:17 PM
The government won't execute him - but someone else will.
The imams and ayatollahs, all behave in the arrogant and totally preposterous way of controlling other countries muslim populations (I won't get into the mindset that muslims in another country should obey these foreign imams and Ayatollahs) by telling them they should carry out orders to kill, etc. And other countries let them.
But, I guess I forgot that muslims are 'muslim first and citizens of an infidel country second'.
Islam is a disease that the weak are susceptible to catch. And like a disease it is something to avoid.
Posted by: R_not at February 6, 2008 4:39 PM
Extreme Islam: Death for insulting Ole Dead What's 'is name.
Moderate Islam: Life in a rat infested prison for insulting Ole Dead What's 'is name.
Ya want moderation in Islam? Well, there it is.
Posted by: Pelayo at February 6, 2008 4:42 PM
Everything I see, in practice and theory, demonstrates that Islam imparts no sense of proportion or balance in the application of its tenets. "Pure" Islam is irrational in the extreme, inflexible and static. No God Who Is Reason could have revealed such a monstrous system of belief.
Posted by: John C at February 6, 2008 4:50 PM
While it is welcome that The Independent is covering this issue, it is, in fact, one of Britain’s most dhimmi newspapers.
You cannot believe everything you read in it.
And you can’t believe everything you read by it’s “star” Middle-East reporter, Robert Fisk.
Take his book “The Great War for Civilization: The conquest of the Middle-East.“
Efraim Karsh , author of “Islamic Imperialism: a history,” wrote an excellent review of this.
he states
” It is difficult to turn a page of The Great War for Civilisation without encountering some basic error. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, not, as Fisk has it, in Jerusalem. The Caliph Ali, the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, was murdered in the year 661, not in the 8th century. Emir Abdallah became king of Transjordan in 1946, not 1921, and both he and his younger brother, King Faisal I of Iraq, hailed not from a “Gulf tribe” but rather from the Hashemites on the other side of the Arabian peninsula. The Iraqi monarchy was overthrown in 1958, not 1962; Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, was appointed by the British authorities, not elected; Ayatollah Khomeini transferred his exile from Turkey to the holy Shiite city of Najaf not during Saddam Hussein’s rule but fourteen years before Saddam seized power. Security Council resolution 242 was passed in November 1967, not 1968; Anwar Sadat of Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, not 1977, and was assassinated in October 1981, not 1979. Yitzhak Rabin was minister of defense, not prime minister, during the first Palestinian intifada, and al Qaeda was established not in 1998 but a decade earlier. And so on and so forth.”
at February 6, 2008 4:54 PM
Incidentally, I signed the petition.
Posted by: Odyessus at February 6, 2008 4:56 PM
"He cannot be defended in any way for what he has done. He was provoking trouble. He was insulting Islam's prophet. This is one of the biggest offences you can make."
Hardly sounds like leniency is coming this man's way. Maybe they won't execute him, but what will they do instead?
R_not is probably right. This statement by the cultural ministry official amounts to a fatwa against this young man, giving any "good Muslim" carte blanche to execute him.
Is this what the coalition is fighting for?
Posted by: PMK at February 6, 2008 5:02 PM
He said: "He cannot be defended in any way for what he has done. He was provoking trouble. He was insulting Islam's prophet. This is one of the biggest offences you can make. In Afghan law it is a capital offence. Islamic law allows the death penalty.
"But there's a saying of the Prophet, that you had better avoid applying a penalty because it is better to have someone guilty who has not been punished, than have someone not guilty who has been punished.
This is the closest thing to Pontius Pilate like saying:
He is guilty but my hands are tied. Do what you want with him. And the barbaric clerics and Muslim wolf pack will certainly know what do with him as prescripbed in Islamic law. What double talk.
Posted by: Briars at February 6, 2008 5:59 PM
So glad President Bush, Condoleeza Rice, and all those others in the Administration were so vocal in their protests against this American-abetted travesty of justice (our government permitted the Afghan Sharia Law Constitution to be established).
Oh, that's right, they were silent.
Never mind.
Posted by: profitsbeard at February 6, 2008 11:48 PM
The real reason for the Afghan Government backing down from proceeding with the execution is given below. Please read The Washington Post news carefully and you will know why. Muslims are a bunch of slimy hipocrits.... need I say more
Afghan Official Accused of Pecking With Impunity
By Al Kamen Wednesday, The Washington Post February 6, 2008; A17
Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he's not intervening for now in the controversial case of Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, 23, a reporter and journalism student who was sentenced to death by a three-judge panel two weeks ago for blasphemy. Kambakhsh had handed classmates a report, perhaps a satire, he found on the Internet that questioned why Muslim men are allowed to have four spouses but women don't have the same right.
After a five-minute trial with no lawyer, Kambakhsh was given a piece of paper saying he had acted against Islam and should be executed, according to his brother.
The case has sparked an international outcry, with human rights and news organizations condemning the arrest and sentence. Demonstrators in Kabul have demanded that the sentence be overturned. Lawmakers have been split.
The press groups, greatly aided by the blogosphere, are playing hardball. A Kabul Press editorial on Jan. 30 noted that Afghanistan's Senate supported the death sentence and noted Washington Post photos of the vice president of that chamber, Sayed Hamed Gailani, kissing first lady Laura Bush's hand at the State of the Union address in 2006.
"Kissing the hand of a woman is also a crime in Islamic law," the editorial said. "Shouldn't Hamed Gailani be arrested and tried?"
Well, our photos prove only intent to smooch. Could have been one of those "air kisses."
In any event, the Afghan Senate by the end of the week withdrew its support for the death sentence, noted its backing of defendants' rights to counsel (not unlike, for example, Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335) and to appeals, and said the earlier statement of support was a "technical mistake."
Meanwhile, Karzai is waiting for the courts to sort things out.
Posted by: barook at February 7, 2008 1:41 AM
Muslim males can own up to 4 Muslim wives.
Muslim wives cannot be owned by more than one Muslim male.
Obey these rules or die.
Allah is merciful, oft forgiving.
Posted by: Xero G at February 7, 2008 3:56 AM
BTW somewhere yesterday I saw that Condi Rice made a surprise visit to Af. and requested that the government change it's stance on this issue. it may have been in the Israeli press.
Posted by: Aunt Bea at February 7, 2008 8:02 AM
OK. Signed.
But the black hole of Islam remains the same.
Posted by: darcy at February 7, 2008 10:35 AM
Obey these rules or die.
Allah is merciful, oft forgiving.
Posted by: Xero G at February 7, 2008 3:56 AM
Right! Always amusing how after the most horrific draconian bestial monstrous orders and commands and declarations from "Allah" comes: "For Allah is compassionate, merciful!"
Yeah, right! And the proverbial pigs fly.
at February 7, 2008 10:40 AM
When you turn on the lights, the roaches scuttle for cover.
Now the roaches are still there and you need to take a more thorough approach to remove them.
But it's still okay to discover that the "decadent" West is
a) on a higher moral plane than an Islamic state.
b) has a tiny bit of influence on an Islamic state's behavior.
It's not much, but it's better than nothing.
Long may you blog, Robert Spencer.
Posted by: tanstaafl at February 7, 2008 10:59 AM
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