Afghan student gets 20 years instead of death for blasphemy
An Afghanistan appeals court overturns the death sentence for Parwiz Kambakhsh, who circulated an article about the rights of women under Islam.
Reported from Kabul, Afghanistan — In a case that has illustrated this country's drift toward a more radically conservative brand of Islam as well as the fragility of its legal system, an appeals court today overturned a death sentence for a student convicted of blasphemy but sentenced him instead to 20 years in prison.
The 24-year-old student, Parwiz Kambakhsh, ran afoul of Afghan authorities last year when he circulated an article about the rights of women under Islam after downloading it from the Internet. He was studying at the time in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, where he also worked as a part-time journalist for local papers.
Arrested by security police and initially held without charges, he was eventually tried on blasphemy charges, convicted and sentenced to death. Tuesday's ruling by a three-judge appeals-court panel was a blow to human-rights groups and advocates of press freedom who have championed Kambakhsh's cause. International organizations, including the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the case pointed to a troubling lack of respect for freedom of speech and individual liberties in Afghanistan, nearly seven years after a U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban movement, which espouses a harsh interpretation of Islam. Religious conservatives had welcomed the earlier sentence against Kambakhsh. After the death penalty was decreed in his January trial, public demonstrations were held in support of the verdict, and some prominent clerics publicly declared he deserved to be executed for violating the teachings of Islam.
Kambakhsh can still appeal to the Supreme Court, but that will be his final recourse. The student has insisted on his innocence.
"I don't accept the court's decision," he told the Associated Press as he left the courtroom after Tuesday's ruling. "It is an unfair decision."
Kambakhsh's supporters have said the case should be thrown out because the previous trial was held in secret and he was denied legal representation -- an occurrence that is not uncommon in Afghan courts. Reformers say the case exemplifies the continuing failure of the Afghan government to establish a free and independent judiciary. Family members have said the student was beaten and threatened with death until he signed a confession and that local journalists who expressed support for him were warned they would be arrested if they persisted.
Kambakhsh's journalist brother, Yaqoub Ibrahimi, has said he believes the blasphemy charges were a pretext and that he himself was the authorities' real target because of articles he wrote about abuses by local warlords and militias.
King is a Times staff writer. laura.king@latimes.com
