Afghan Journalist Sentenced to Death

Afghan journalist, Iranian students face prison and death

Written by Joshua Grenzsund

Monday, 04 February 2008

Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh The Jan. 22 announcement that a Balkhprovincial court sentenced an Afghan journalist to death for distributing“blasphemous” material signals that Afghanistan,and other nations in the region, are collectively stepping back from ensuringfreedom of the press. Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, a 23-year-old Afghan,had been attending Balkh University and working at the daily Jahan-e Naw (NewWorld) newspaper in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif when he was arrested thispast October on charges that he printed an article from the Internet thatquestioned the Koran’s position on unequal treatment of men and women andshared it with others. Though thearticle was actually written by an online journalist – an Iranian-born studentwho lives in Europe and goes by the name of ArashBikhoda, or "Godless," in Persian – the court ruled that Kambakhshwas guilty of, and had already confessed to distributing anti-Islamic material. The BBC hasreported that the provincial deputy attorney, Hafizullah Khaliqyar, threatenedother Afghan journalists with arrest if they attempt to interfere in the nexttwo hearings that are required to affirm Kambakhsh’s death sentence. Meanwhile,the France-based Reporters Without Borders and theLondon-based Institute for War andPeace Reporting are both reporting that Kambakhsh’s arrest and sentencing areactually intended to intimidate Kambakhsh’s brother, Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, whois also a journalist. Ibrahim recently published an article that implicates anAfghan legislator in a series of killings and kidnappings. This is notthe first time that claims of the Afghan government and clerics using religiouspretexts to arrest and imprison journalists have surfaced. In October, 2005 Ali Mohaqeq Nasab, Afghan journalist and the editor of the"Hoqoq-e-Zan" (Women's Rights) monthly, was arrested andsentenced to two years in prison on charges of blasphemy. Nasab had publishedarticles that argued that giving up Islam, apostacy, was not a crime andquestioned Shari’a law and its harsh punishments, such as stoning a woman whois found guilty of adultery. Though clerics had originally demanded the deathpenalty for Nasab, he was released in December 2005 after he apologized for thearticles and an appeals court succumbed to international pressure and gave hima six month suspended sentence. In an interview with Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty after his release,Nasab claimed that the clerics and the courts arrested and charged him onorders “from oneof Afghanistan’s neighbors” and that the charge of “insulting Islam was only anexcuse” that served at once as a reason to attack him personally, as an ethnicHazara, so that no Hazaras “should grow and reach success” and also to attack “issuessuch as freedom of expression, democracy, and civilization.” His concerns echothe eerily similar Kambakhsh’s case, as Nasab said that “those who are incharge of enforcing democracy and freedom of expression are people who do notbelieve these [principles]. They are even the enemies of these principles [and]that if it goes on like this, freedom of expression may be no more.” Thepractice of detaining, and even killing, journalists is a tactic shared byseveral of Afghanistan’s neighbors, including Khazakstan, Kyrgyzstan,Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iran, each of which has been cited, bythe Committee to Protect Journalist, as being among the most censored or mostdangerous places to be a journalist. This common characteristic is not so muchan issue of simply obstructing free press, but is rather the visible byproductof governments which are eager and willing to oppress their citizens to stay inpower. While thegovernments in former Soviet Republics of Central Asia fight any reporting that mayencourage either democracy or Shari’a-based government, as they try to hold onto communist dictatorship in the 21st century, their neighbor, Iran,is mainly fighting movements that challenge the entrenched Islamicfundamentalism. Afghanistan, then, is a confused amalgamationof these two – with both a Soviet legacy and a strong Taleban resurgence – inwhich President Hamid Karzai’s government seemingly has to take a stand againstany press or reporting that could encourage democracy, Shari’a, orcommunist-style dictatorship. This situation of having to suppress everythingsatisfies no one and demonstrates the ineffective and paradoxical position thatKarzai’s government is, unsuccessfully, attempting to occupy. In Iran thesituation is much more straight-forward, and the systematic dismemberment offree press and dissident movements is apparent in the hard-line conservative policiesof President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, aone-time Brigadier General in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard, which arespurring arrests of dissidents to a new level. Though conservatives won controlof the Iranian Parliament in 2004, reformists and others who oppose Ahmadinejadhave since won the majority of seats in Tehran’s municipal government. Many ofthese opponents cite the president’s failure to focus on domestic issues,especially as the lower classes are being hit by high energy prices, inflation,and gas shortages during an unusually hard winter. As Ahmadinejad himselfstepped from the position of Tehran’s mayor into the presidency, it isclear that such a shift at his powerbase is extremely threatening, withparliamentary elections scheduled for Mar. 14. As aresult, the pressure on dissidents, reformist, and journalists has increased.One recent crackdown involved about 60 university students across the country,four of whom were expelled, for what they claim are false accusations takingpart in unauthorized demonstrations. But many students have actually beendetained for similar activities. In a public statement released by AmnestyInternational, the organization claims that between 20 and 30 studentsassociated with Students for Freedom and Equality (Daneshjouyan-e Azadi Khahva Beraber Talab), were detained for participating in demonstrations forNational University Students’ Day on December 7, 2007 and have yet to be released. Thisdetention has led to fears that the students “could be tortured or otherwiseill-treated in detention” at the notorious Evin prison, north of Tehran, which has been connected withnumerous political detentions and deaths. RFERL reports that one portion ofEvin, section 209, where many political dissidents are held, is controlledentirely by Iran’s Intelligence Ministry. The fearsare not unfounded. On Jan. 18 Radio Farda reported that a student activist detainedin Iran’s Kurdistan province, Ebrahim Lotfollahi, forreasons authorities have not explained, died in custody. Officials report thathe suffocated, an apparent suicide they say, but no autopsy was performed, thegrave was quickly covered with concrete. Reuters reports that his family isdemanding that his body be exhumed to determine the cause of death. But it is no longer just groups who endorsedemocratic reforms who are facing detention and torture. Even Marxists students,who had been tolerated by the government because of their shared anti-Westernsentiments, are now facing scrutiny, possibly because of their growing size andinfluence and the fact that their leftist ideology is, at heart, contradictoryto the Islamic government. To hold power in the March elections, the governmentfeels it has to come down hard, but arresting journalists is evidence more evidence of weakness than of strength. 2008 thecampusword.com