Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
London Daily Telegraph
May 19, 2008 By Tom Coghlan, in Jalalabad
An Afghan journalist who faces the death penalty for blasphemy has begun his appeal hearings without a defence lawyer.
Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh on Sunday denied all charges and said an earlier confession that prompted a court to sentence him to death in January had been extracted under torture.
The charges against Mr Kambakhsh relate to an article he downloaded from the internet and distributed among classmates at Balkh University in northern Afghanistan, where he is a student and reporter for a local newspaper.
The article was originally published in an Iranian newspaper and questioned several tenets of Islam, including those relating to the rights of women.
Government prosecutors allege that Mr Kambakhsh added three paragraphs of his own to the article he distributed, one of which read: "This is the real face of Islam ... the Prophet Mohammed wrote verses of the holy Koran just for his own benefit."
In January a provincial court sentenced Mr Kambakhsh to death after a closed session. The defendant claims he had no lawyer in court, was given only three minutes to speak, and had been tortured.
"I'm Muslim, and I would never let myself write such an article. All these accusations are nonsense," he said during an emotional 15-minute statement.
Mr Kambakhsh said that he did not believe he needed a defence lawyer because he had done nothing wrong.
The head of the three-judge panel, Abdul Salaam Qazizada, adjourned the case for a week for the defendant to prepare a written defence and meet a defence lawyer.
Afghanistan's media flourished after the overthrow of the Taliban with radio, newspapers and television stations opening across the country.
However, press freedom has come under increasing pressure in the past two years, particularly from the conservative religious establishment.
Afghanistan's leading independent television station, Tolo TV, is facing prosecution for refusing to curtail the broadcast of Indian soap operas, which offended conservatives with revealing saris and racy story lines.
While Afghanistan is a signatory to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which enshrines the right to freedom of speech, the country's constitution bans anything that is contrary to the "beliefs and provisions of the holy religion of Islam".
Privately, Western diplomats suggest that the Afghan government is eager to see the Kambakhsh case resolved before the forthcoming Paris Conference, a major meeting of Western donor nations beginning on June 12 at which the Afghan government will appeal for $51 billion of aid.
May 19, 2008 By Tom Coghlan, in Jalalabad
An Afghan journalist who faces the death penalty for blasphemy has begun his appeal hearings without a defence lawyer.
Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh on Sunday denied all charges and said an earlier confession that prompted a court to sentence him to death in January had been extracted under torture.
The charges against Mr Kambakhsh relate to an article he downloaded from the internet and distributed among classmates at Balkh University in northern Afghanistan, where he is a student and reporter for a local newspaper.
The article was originally published in an Iranian newspaper and questioned several tenets of Islam, including those relating to the rights of women.
Government prosecutors allege that Mr Kambakhsh added three paragraphs of his own to the article he distributed, one of which read: "This is the real face of Islam ... the Prophet Mohammed wrote verses of the holy Koran just for his own benefit."
In January a provincial court sentenced Mr Kambakhsh to death after a closed session. The defendant claims he had no lawyer in court, was given only three minutes to speak, and had been tortured.
"I'm Muslim, and I would never let myself write such an article. All these accusations are nonsense," he said during an emotional 15-minute statement.
Mr Kambakhsh said that he did not believe he needed a defence lawyer because he had done nothing wrong.
The head of the three-judge panel, Abdul Salaam Qazizada, adjourned the case for a week for the defendant to prepare a written defence and meet a defence lawyer.
Afghanistan's media flourished after the overthrow of the Taliban with radio, newspapers and television stations opening across the country.
However, press freedom has come under increasing pressure in the past two years, particularly from the conservative religious establishment.
Afghanistan's leading independent television station, Tolo TV, is facing prosecution for refusing to curtail the broadcast of Indian soap operas, which offended conservatives with revealing saris and racy story lines.
While Afghanistan is a signatory to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which enshrines the right to freedom of speech, the country's constitution bans anything that is contrary to the "beliefs and provisions of the holy religion of Islam".
Privately, Western diplomats suggest that the Afghan government is eager to see the Kambakhsh case resolved before the forthcoming Paris Conference, a major meeting of Western donor nations beginning on June 12 at which the Afghan government will appeal for $51 billion of aid.