Afghan Student Facing 20 Years In Jail For Downloading Article On Women's Rights

[babylonsister]

Student facing 20 years in hell

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

By Jerome Starkey in Kabul

Thursday, 12 March 2009


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.

President Hamid Karzai promised last year that justice would be done "in the right way", after worldwide protests at how Mr Kambaksh was convicted. But Mr Nooristani claimed yesterday that there was "no respect for the law", even in the highest court in Afghanistan. "They have ignored the principle of crime and punishment, they have ignored the principle of innocent until proven guilty. They have got the same mindset as the Taliban."

The Supreme Court's decision means Mr Kambaksh's best hope is now a presidential pardon, which will force Mr Karzai to choose between fundamentalists in his government and the rule of law. It has also raised serious questions over the millions of dollars spent on Afghan justice reforms since 2001, which appear to have been wasted. Mr Nooristani said: "The whole system is corrupt. Even with more investment, the system won't work."

more...

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

[Jim Lane]

1. So Bush wasn't a complete failure....

He succeeded in instilling some Republican principles into the government of Afghanistan.

[struggle4progress]

2. This is an improvement: he was previously sentenced to death

Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights
By Kim Sengupta

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 ... 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 ...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/sentenced-to-death-afghan-who-dared-to-read-about-womens-rights-775972.html

[struggle4progress]

3. 2001: "Laura Bush .. said the war on terrorism was 'a fight for the rights and dignity of women.'"

Laura Bush Addresses State of Afghan Women
By James Gerstenzang and Lisa Getter
November 18, 2001 in print edition A-3

Seeking to draw attention to the treatment of women and children in Afghanistan, the White House assigned President Bush's weekly Saturday radio address to First Lady Laura Bush, who said the war on terrorism was "a fight for the rights and dignity of women" ... The broadcast marked the first time a presidential wife has given the entire radio address alone ... Bush's remarks .. spotlight conditions that the administration believes should help it gain international support. With the regime "in retreat across much of the country," she said, "the people of Afghanistan, especially women, are rejoicing" ... Amnesty International .... cautioned that neither the first lady nor the State Department mentioned "that the Northern Alliance does not have a perfect record with regard to women's rights" ... http://articles.latimes.com/2001/nov/18/news/mn-5602

a promise not kept