Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Justice in the new Afghanistan

The following was picked up from the Dhimmi Watch website. This is what happens when religion gets to determine the boundaries of free expression. Apparently, we are committed until 2011 to keep on fighting and dying for this Muslim country.

Kabul, 21 Oct. (AKI) - A journalism student who downloaded and distributed an article on women's rights from the Internet has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Afghanistan.

Seyyed Parwiz Kambakhsh, arrested a year ago, was sentenced to death by a court in Balkh. But a Kabul appeals court on Tuesday reduced the sentence to 20 years in prison.

"This is an unjust sentence," defence lawyer, Mohammad Afzal Nourestani, told Adnkronos International (AKI).

"We will appeal to the Supreme Court. During the hearing they did not consider that my client is not the author of the article, that it was downloaded from an Iranian site and he had to ask several friends to read it."

During the appeals process, Parwiz Kambakhsh was tortured and mistreated.
"My client says he was tortured in Balkh prison and during interrogation was forced to admit to being the author of the article that appeared to be the work of an Iranian blogger."

On 28 November Seyyed Parwiz Kambakhsh will receive the Information, Safety & Freedom watchdog's Press Freedom award in Siena.

Last year the award was given to Iranian Kurdish journalists, Adnan Hassanpour and Hiwa Boutimar, both of whom have been sentenced to death by an Iranian court.

1 comment:

Navigator said...

Navigator replys to tim marshall.

I blogged about Sayyed on July 2, 2008, and posted a letter that I sent to the Afghan Ambassador to Canada and to the Prime Minister of Canada. I invite visitors to peruse the letter and copy it if you wish to adapt it. Use the blog search box and type in "Save Sayyed" to go directly to the letter.