Afghan journalist sentenced to death - and we can help (please!)

There's qualified good news this morning. The Afghan Senate has backed off its original confirmation of the young man's death sentence.

The new stance, in which the Senate calls its previous decision "a technical mistake", significantly raises hopes that he will eventually be freed.

Read the full article here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/lifeline-for-pervez-afghan-senate-withdraws-demand-for-death-sentence-777188.html


What this means is that your letters and faxes and emails and petitions are having the intended effect. It takes just a few seconds to help. Please keep it up.

You'll do many other things this weekend, but few will be as important as this.

 

This is a good thing you've doing here, jgmac. We usually just kvetch and criticize when these sort of threads come up, whoda thunk about actually doing something about it.

 

For the top of Page 3, here's the letter to fax or send. Simply cut, paste, add the date and your signature.

[Date]

His Excellency Hamid Karzai
President of the Islamic State of Afghanistan
c/o Said T. Jawad
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Afghanistan
Embassy of Afghanistan
2341 Wyoming Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20008

Fax: 202.483.6488

Your Excellency,

I am writing to express my shock regarding the death sentence passed down to my colleague, journalist Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh.

I understand that on January 22, 2008, Mr. Kambakhsh, a journalism student at Balkh University and reporter for the local daily Jahan-e-Naw (The New World), was tried by an Islamic court in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Balkh Province, convicted of blasphemy, and sentenced to death. The trial was reportedly held behind closed doors, and he had no legal representation.

I am seriously concerned about the circumstances surrounding the charges and sentencing of Mr. Kambakhsh. I therefore urge you to intervene to secure his immediate and unconditional release in accordance with Afghan law and Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.


Sincerely,

[Your name and signature]

* * *

Also, there are a number of petitions circulating for this young man's release.

From Reporters Without Borders (link to the petition is at the bottom of the article):

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=25323

And from the Independent (link to the petition is in the box to the right under 'Related Articles'):

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/save-pervez-global-protests-to-save-afghan-student-from-death-sentence-776783.html

Thanks again to everyone for their help on this.

* * *

Jay Farrar's link straight to the petition.

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

Name, e-mail, country and hit send. Took about 15 seconds.


* * *

And a reminder of better news this morning. The Afghan Senate has backed off its original confirmation of the young man's death sentence.

The new stance, in which the Senate calls its previous decision "a technical mistake", significantly raises hopes that he will eventually be freed.

Read the full article here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/lifeline-for-pervez-afghan-senate-withdraws-demand-for-death-sentence-777188.html


What this means is that your letters and faxes and emails and petitions are working. It takes just a few seconds to help. Please keep it up.

 

A shoutout this morning to the editorial board of the Houston Chronicle for taking this up. The piece also makes note of the terrible human rights problems raised by the Beijing Olympics - an issue to which we sports journalists should be especially attuned.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/5510201.html

 

Here's the latest, as of tonight. Cause perhaps for cautious optimism.

http://www.cpj.org/news/2008/asia/afghan06feb08na.html

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=25502

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23173317-401,00.html

And the young man remains on the front page of the Independent. Their petition is now up to 67,000 signatures.

http://www.independent.co.uk/

If you haven't written or faxed or signed a petition yet, please do so. Every little bit helps.

 

In the interest of raising awareness here, I'm going to violate a personal principle and tack up this editorial in full. From yesterday's Washington Post:


An Afghan Condemned
A death sentence against a student should be reversed -- by due process.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008; Page A18

A 23-YEAR-OLD Afghan journalist and student, Sayed Parwiz Kambakhsh, allegedly printed an article off the Internet that criticized Koranic verses on women. For that "insult" to Islam, an Afghan court has sentenced him to death. The case is symptomatic of the growing friction between Afghanistan's conservative Islamic culture and the new, human-rights-respecting democracy that President Hamid Karzai is trying to build with U.S. support. That means Mr. Karzai and Western supporters of Mr. Kambakhsh must proceed carefully, but Mr. Kambakhsh must not be executed.

Some Afghan religious leaders and politicians are treating Mr. Kambakhsh's highly politicized prosecution as a test case for determining whether the government truly upholds "the tenets and provisions of the holy religion of Islam," which the country's constitution says no Afghan law may "contravene" -- creating an unresolved tension with the constitution's commitments to free speech and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The upper house of parliament first issued a statement endorsing the death sentence, then retracted it.

The charged political context means that public demands by foreign governments on Mr. Karzai to use extrajudicial means to exonerate Mr. Kambakhsh may be counterproductive. Mr. Karzai would be better off acting not because of international outrage but in defense of the human rights principles he has advocated for Afghanistan. While all death sentences have to be approved by the president, Mr. Karzai's spokesman said yesterday he would not intervene until the courts have their final say in the case.

Mr. Kambakhsh's case could still be taken up by two higher courts; they should be pressed by liberal Afghans to enforce the democratic norms of the constitution, including rights to due process and defense counsel -- both of which Mr. Kambakhsh was denied. His family and several human rights groups are working to secure a lawyer for him, ideally one who is familiar with Afghan law and Islamic jurisprudence. They are also trying to move the case out of Balkh province and into Kabul, a less conservative locale that would be likely to afford him a fairer trial. Only if that process fails should Mr. Karzai be asked to issue a pardon.

 

No news yet today, but here's an overview of the complex problems "democracy" faces in Afghanistan. This young man's case represents an absolute model for the contradictions, frustrations and unintended consequences we'll confront in the future:

http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=16776

 

The Afghan drug trade must be robust again. They're back to normal.

 

The very opposite of helpful.

No news today, but a disturbing sidebar:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/friend-of-pervez-flees-extremists-in-afghanistan-782124.html

It's still important to write, fax, email whomever you can. Sign a petition. Keep up the pressure. These things take a while.

 

From the Washington Post this morning:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/14/AR2008021403583.html

And from the Edinburgh Journal:

http://www.journal-online.co.uk/articles/show/2825

http://www.journal-online.co.uk/articles/show/2880


I post these this morning simply as a reminder that these campaigns take time to gather momentum; and that every individual who takes a moment to write or fax or email or sign a petition in these cases has an effect. It's small, but it's important. Very slowly, one letter at a time, you can help right an injustice. You can help save a life. It's not politics - it's an act of common decency.

 

Further cause for guarded optimism. Keep your fingers crossed:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/pervezs-move-to-kabul-may-herald-his-release-783006.html

 

A miscellany of this week's updates.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/pervez-appeal-in-open-court-784041.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/21/afghanistan.pressandpublishing

http://www.observer.com/2008/ousted-portfolio-deputy-returns-times-fold

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/american-islamic-congress-hosts-capitol-hill-forum-on-media-censorship,286649.shtml

Please hold a good thought and write/fax/email if you haven't already. Thanks.