All Comments (14)

Petitions to try and help Mr. Kambakhsh have been started on the internet.

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=25199

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/article775954.ece

www.petitiononline.com/af8f6912/petition.html (you will have to cut/paste)

Please sign and spread as far as you can. Hopefully we can help get Mr. Kambakhsh a pardon or a reduced sentence.

Nonsense Mr Georgiason

GEORGIASON:

Well said, old bean. Rest assured, though, all the men you cited will answer to a higher power, and what a rude awakening they are in for.

There is no action that the corrupt will not take to silence those exposing there corruption.

from: Letters from a shrinking globe: around the day in 80 worlds

"Last week in Afghanistan 23-year-old Perwiz Kambakhsh was sentenced to death for mocking Islam and the Koran.

All he had done, it seems, was distribute a polemic article he'd found the internet.

The sentence has shocked many outside and inside Afghanistan, where around 200 protestors demonstrated in the capital Kabul yesterday. But the authorities are, so far, backing the verdict.

I contacted Reporter's Without Borders' Asia expert Vincent Brossel to talk about this controversial case.

Chris Cummins: Why exactly has this young man been given the death sentence?

Vincent Brossel: Some religious leaders and local authorities in the north of Afghanistan decided that he had committed the crime of blasphemy, because, apparently, he found an article on the internet and distributed it to his friends and colleagues. The article was written by an Iranian intellectual about the role and the place of women in Muslim society.

CC-I believe the article was asking questions like, for example, why was it that a man could have four wives but a woman couldn't have multiple husbands?

VB-That's right. The Iranian intellectual just took all the parts of the Koran that are talking about women. And, as you know, the Koran was written a few centuries ago, so, as you can imagine, it includes some parts that are quite radical about the place and the role of women. I think this young journalist has a different feeling and opinion on what the role of women in Afghanistan should be. But unfortunately, seven years after the fall of the Taliban, there are still a lot of very conservative authorities and religious people who have a lot of influence in the country. And it's very sad.

CC-The sentence has been approved, praised even, by Afghanistan's upper house of parliament, the Senate. That sounds like very bad news for this young man, doesn't it?

VB-Yes of course. We found that there is a support for this sentence, because everything related to religion and the Koran is so sensitive in Afghanistan that if you don't approve of such an unfair trial as the one against Kambakhsh, you can be accused of being anti-Islamic yourself. Unfortunately, President Karzai hasn't given any word about it and we fear that, being under pressure from the radical conservatives, he will not support this journalist. So we need, first of all, to get a fair appeal trial, we need to get him a good lawyer, and we also need the support of the international community on this subject.

CC-You say that President Harmid Karzai, who has to approve the sentence before it can be carried out, is under pressure from the conservative clerics. But surely he is also under pressure from the Western coalition, which is, to a considerable extent, propping up his regime?

VB-Yes it is very true that Mr. Karzai is under pressure from all sides, but in this case we can really hope that the international community, and the U.N. in particular, will be strong enough to defend Kambakhsh and especially to remind Kazai that freedom of expression is written into the Afghan constitution and this freedom of expression should be extended to religious matters.

It is shocking that everything related to religion is like a big taboo in Afghanistan."

Reporters Without Borders is a Paris-based NGO that advocates freedom of the press.

http://fm4.orf.at/chris/221569

queenmum--

well karen armstrong is wrong.

but.. (imho) the jihadis of islam are about to ignite a holy war with their global rant of strident religious rhetoric and accompanying bloody violence.

and forget that "3 monotheistic faiths" crapola. hindus, buddhists, and atheists are all under islamic oppression and all display every intent to defend their belief systems.

Karen Armstrong says that fundamentalists of each of the 3 monotheistic faiths have more in common with each other than with the mainstream of their religions. It's being proved every day.

Mr. Dickey wrote:
"Once you can claim that a critical press is on the wrong side of God’s law, after all, you can do just about anything you want to shut it down. That’s not only a problem for Afghanistan or for Islam. I think that’s a danger in any country where politicians claim they answer to a higher law."

Amen, Mr. Dickey. Now let me amend your last sentence and express the throught in a way you were too polite to use:

"That's a danger in any country where politicians and their theocratic allies--like most Republicans and extremist Christian evangelicals--claim they answer to a higher law."

Or, more specifically:

"That's a danger in any country where politicians and their theocratic allies--like George Bush, Dick Cheney, Mike Huckabee, Tom DeLay, Strom Thurmond, Henry Hyde (R.I.P.), Jerry Falwell (ditto), Pat Robertson, and James Dobson--claim they answer to a higher law."

Roy:

If electroshocking gays cures them will electroshocking non gays will make they gay? Has anyone electroshocked non gays to see what happens, for scientific reasons only of course?

Here's a thought. Electroshock Muslims. Who knows, maybe it will cure that disease.

More evidence to convince me Islam is a religion of love and tolerance. We need to fear this religion and it's extremism just as we need to fear neochristianity and it's extremism like capital punishment, pre-emptive war, and electroshocking gays to "cure" them.

“The positive aspect is that even in conservative Muslim societies you find people who speak out..”

It is unfortunate that they cannot stay alive for very long:

Zakia Zaki, one of the most prominent afghan radio journalists (Radio Solh : Radio Peace) and mother of six children, was murdered on June 6, 2007. In this video, she speaks of her hopes for the woman of her country. She was a brave soul:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf4j9pQ7L6M

Zakia Zaki was shot seven times, including in the chest and head, as she slept with her 20-month-old son at her home north of Kabul, officials say.

'Freedom of expression'

The Independent Association of Afghan Journalists has condemned the murder, describing it as an example of how difficult the working environment has become for journalists and especially for women.

"She believed in freedom of expression, that's why she was killed," the association's head Rahimullah Samander told Reuters.

The group said she had received threats in the past but had no personal enemies.

Ms Zaki was a rare female voice in Afghanistan.

Mr. Christopher Dickey,

You got that right - politicians manipulating religion as an issue to suppress free speech in their countries against their own corrupt and ineffective governance in the Muslim world.

Either they use Islam as a threat for repression (as in Algeria, Egypt) or Islam as the tool for represssion (as in Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia) of free speech.

Either way, it is self-serving to the governments, as pointed out in your essay on the political undercurrents on the case of the 20 year old journalism student, Sayed Perwiz Kambaksh, being sentenced to death.

It interest me that the said student had downloaded and distributed a polemic by an Iranian that women should be able to marry just as many husbands as men do.

Asking why women should not have as many husbands as men do is something commonly asked in Muslim countries. No one got arrested or sentenced for it that I know of, till now, as it is seen a basis for a discussion on why and the larger issues involved on responsibilities.

Also, knowing a bit of Iranian arts, culture and blogs, that sounds like a satire on some of the Iranian ayatollahs' and mullahs' interpretations and fatwas.

As for the reality of Afghanistan since the Soviet invasion, it has only known armed conflict and lawlessness since. There is less numbers of men to women in Afghanistan due to armed coflicts. Many women are widowed or of marraigable age but with not enough men for all. Most Afghan women (and men) are poor, live in rural areas are subsist on farming

Take the above all together, what the distributed piece by an Iranian in the context of Afghanistan, is at best, an insensitive piece on the reality of that many women there are widowed, or unmarried in a largely traditional, conservative and farming society who need men around for income and protection, and men lost daily to armed conflicts.

The Qur'an allows for up to to four wives only if one is financially or materially able to support them all and be just to all the wives. Historically, only Muslim rulers, aristocrats and the very wealthy have more than one wives more for political and social alliances.

Historically too, it is most practiced by others after wars and armed conflicts as a way to ensure widows and their children have a main man "breadwinner" and "protector".

Back to President Hamid Karzai, he is, unfortunately, is also in a politically tenuous position to do anything effectively in Afghanistan. He must tread carefully at all times.

It is no secret among Afghans that Mr. Karzai is a "parachuted in" and approved and supported by US "leader" of Afghanistan. He barely or hardly have any control in areas and among Afghan people outside of Kabul.

In the Muslim world, the problems of the credibility of "Hamid Karzais" (i.e. Muslim leaders approved and supported by the US/west in Muslim states) is the same.

They and their regimes/governments can be corrupt, ineffective, repressive, unjust on their own people and in governance. But as long as they use their own freedom of speech to assure western governments of their "friendliness" of western interests, they can curtail the freedom of speech of their own peoples.

Unfortunately, their own people don't see them as answering to them in governing accountability, or to God spiritually, but to that higher power and law unto itself called the United States with seemingly elastic ideas of freedom of speech when it comes to Muslim governments, Muslim states and Muslims.

Perceptions is everything. No matter how wrong or uninformed or misinformed.

Thank you and regards

"J"

As the philosopher said: "Always some new horror out of Islam".

See my post on Pamela K. Taylor's thread.