MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan, 24 January 2008 — Media rights groups called on Afghanistan’s president to intervene yesterday after a court sentenced to death a young journalist who distributed articles said to insult Islam. The primary court in the northern province of Balkh delivered the sentence on Perwiz Kambakhsh, 23, Tuesday after he was arrested nearly three months ago for distributing at his university material downloaded from the Internet.
“Based on the crimes Perwiz Kambakhsh committed, the primary court yesterday sentenced him to the most serious punishment which is the death penalty,” Balkh province Deputy Attorney General Hafizullah Khaliqyar told AFP.
Kambakhsh, a reporter for a city newspaper called Jahan-e-Naw (The New World) and a journalism student at Balkh University, indicated he did not accept the verdict and would appeal, his family said. Afghan and international media groups called on President Hamid Karzai to step in. “This is unfair, this is illegal,” said Rahimullah Samander, president of the Afghan Independent Journalists’ Association (AIJA).
The reporter had had no legal representation and the media were unaware of the trial, he told AFP. The matter should also have been referred to a national media violations commission for adjudication, he said. AIJA had appealed to Karzai, Parliament and the national attorney general to intervene and was also rallying support from international rights groups, he said.
“This is too big for a small mistake — he just printed a copy and looked at this and read it. How can we believe in this ‘democracy’ if we can’t even read, we can’t even study?” Afghanistan’s media has blossomed since the 2001 ouster of the extremist Taleban regime, which stifled the media and handed out harsh punishments, including death, for violations of a strict code of Islamic behavior.
The post-Taleban constitution is based on Islamic Shariah law but also promotes democracy and rights, including the freedom of expression. Another journalist, Ghows Zalmai, was also arrested three months ago on charges of distributing a translation of the Qur’an that clerics did not accept. Religious scholars have also called for his death.
