A 23 year old Journalism student Sayad Parwez Kambaksh, has been sentenced to death for Blasphemy in Afghanistan.On the 27 October, Kambaksh was arrested for distributing materials that he downloaded from the Internet, deemed to be offensive to Islam. Going on-line and discovering an interesting paper, Kambaksh printed it out for his class at Balkh University, to discuss it with his teacher and fellow students, the paper gets copied and distributed.
When Kambaksh goes on trial, he has no Attorney and a 3 Judge Panel decides that the Journalism student should be put to death because the paper that was distributed humiliates Islam.
Balkh province Deputy Attorney General Hafizullah Khaliqyar, threatened on Monday to arrest any Journalist who supports Kambaksh at a media briefing where officials defended the arrest of the student reporter. Islamic Religious Clerics have also called for the death penalty of Kambaksh. Arab Times, Kuwait, January 23, 2008
The United States Military currently occupies Afghanistan, after toppling the Taliban subsequent to 9/11---so far President Hamid Karzai nor the U.S. Military have made any comments.
It has been speculated that the Islamic Court real motive was not to protect Islam at all but to silence Kambaksh's brother Yaqub Ibrahimi, who is a Journalist and has written a series of articles reporting on the atrocities that have been committed by senior government officials in northern Afghanistan.
