Afghan Injustice

Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh said that before his arrest, his “friends used to tell me that the Afghan justice system is unfair…I didn’t believe them.”

Kambakhsh, a student of journalism at Belkh University in Afghanistan was arrested on October 27, 2007, by the Afghani authorities and sentenced to death by firing squad at the age of 23. He was imprisoned and sentenced on the grounds that he insulted Mohammed and the Quran. According the Sharia law, a person who insults the Quran or the Prophet himself must die. Tried by a three-judge panel in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Kambakhsh was found guilty of blasphemy; he was accused and found guilty of downloading a blasphemous document from the internet and distributing it. This document – written by “Arash Bikhoda” (atheist in Arab) – criticized the Muslim practice of polygamy, portraying the Prophet Mohammed is portrayed as a thief and a fornicator. So, Kambakhsh has been accused of anti-Islamic propaganda.