Afghan student journalist facing 20 years in prison (sentenced for blasphemy)

[AlphaCentauri]

Afghan court secretly sentences student whose cause was taken up by The Independent. His crime? To download article on women's rights

Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, the student journalist sentenced to death for blasphemy in Afghanistan, has been told he will spend the next 20 years in jail after the country's highest court ruled against him – without even hearing his defence.


The 23-year-old, brought to worldwide attention after an Independent campaign, was praying that Afghanistan's top judges would quash his conviction for lack of evidence, or because he was tried in secret and convicted without a defence lawyer. Instead, almost 18 months after he was arrested for allegedly circulating an article about women's rights, any hope of justice and due process evaporated amid gross irregularities, allegations of corruption and coercion at the Supreme Court. Justices issued their decision in secret, without letting Mr Kambaksh's lawyer submit so much as a word in his defence.

Afzal Nooristani, the legal campaigner representing Mr Kambaksh, accused the judges of behaving "no better than the Taliban". Hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into Afghanistan's legal system and 149 British soldiers have died there since 2001, but experts admit that state justice is still beyond the reach of most ordinary Afghans.

...

Mr Kambaksh was found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to death last year for circulating an essay on women's rights which questioned verses in the Koran.

It later emerged he was convicted by three mullahs, in secret, without access to a lawyer. The sentence was commuted to 20 years on appeal. At that appeal, in October, the key prosecution witness withdrew his testimony, claiming he had been forced to lie on pain of death. The prosecution then appealed to the Supreme Court to reinstate the death sentence. The defence appealed to quash his conviction altogether.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/student-facing-20-years-in-hell-1643069.html

[angryfirelord]

1. So sad

The middle east used to be a great place of scientific knowledge and cultural advancement. Then religion got entangled with government and it all went downhill.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age

[humblebum]

2. the Middle East has, with slight exception, always mixed religion with government

The problem isn't religion. the problem is fanaticism.