On Tuesday, Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh was sentenced to death in a closed trial in a lower court in the northern region of Balkh. He was allowed no legal counsel. He wasn’t even allowed to speak.
[…]
Kaambakhsh, a third-year journalism student at Balkh University, reports for the Jahan-e-Naw newspaper in Mazar-e-Sharif. He was arrested last October on charges of distributing “anti-Islamic propaganda” in the form of an article that originated in Iran that questioned the legitimacy of the Koran’s unequal treatment of men and women.
But Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, Kaambakhsh’s brother, says even that isn’t true. Ibrahim, a law student at Balkh University, is also a journalist. He’s a staff reporter for IWPR.
Observers say it may well be that the Afghan clerics who sentenced Kaambakhsh are in fact attempting to silence Ibrahimi, who has written critically of regional warlords and government officials. A recent report co-authored by Ibrahimi makes the case that after six years of slow but steady progress on the free-speech front in Afghanistan, 2007 turned out to be the worst year for the suppression of the press since the 2002 liberation.
Pass this story along to your MP.
Once again we see just what the West is dealing with in the ME. Tribalism,16th century ideas,patriarchy,and just plain old evil. IMO, the hell with converting them to democracy. Wipe out the entire “old” school,and the youth will willingly follow a new way when they aren’t threatened with shairi law and such.
progress is slow.
Under the Taliban they would have just taken him to the nearest street corner and used him for AK 47 target practice. No need for any court.
A very small step forward, but progress nonetheless.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080128/parl_resumes_080128/20080128?hub=TopStories
was Borat Dion as concerned about the thousands the Taliban killed in public executions. the comments even at CTV(tass) call it a manufactured crisis.
This kind of stuff is discouraging. If this is the regime we’re fighting to protect, what’s the point?
I wouldn’t send our soldiers over to defend hamas either.
I’d have to say that if Harper wants to continue our involvement he should get the Afghan gov to back off this stuff. They need us to protect them more than we need to do the protecting.
I think we should consult with Taliban Jack and see if he’s willing to try and talk some sense into these people. He can bring Dawn Black with him….
You know what folks, this is a travesty but when push comes to shove we are not in Afghanistan to make a Canada-lite.
Our troops, our governmental officials and our foreign aid is not going to give these people the same respect of human rights that we have. They have to come to that on their own. We’ll help but we’re not the Nanny nation for the infant Afghanistan.
One wonders if warren and warman are cheering for the afghan clerics.
Sure miss those stone-some-women-to-death Saturdays down at the old soccer field.
Don’t worry fellas, Stephane Dion, Taliban Jack and Gilles Duceppe are doing everything possible to bring back the good old days for you. All they want is your promise that you will behave.
Nevertheless, just kill whoever is handy for the time being.
According to the MSM this AM Haper’s secret agenda is shining forth with the upcoming death of a convicted killer in Montana. Somehow the secret agenda of the “progressives”, their death cult affiliation, keeps missing the head lines. I guess Harper just isn’t as good at keeping a secret as the opposition.
Otter
One wonders if warren and warman are cheering for the afghan clerics.
Sadly these two left-wingers may truly believe that by restricting reasonable free speech here they are making the world a better place. Every generation has their useful idiots such as Alan Borovay who realize (too late) that their Frankensteins’ such as the HRC went too far. I am guessing warren is too egomaniacal to admit he is wrong and warman makes too much money to give up the gig that the HRC set up for him.
I don’t like raving racists, anti-Semites or misogynists but until they pose a clear commercial or bodily threat they must have their right to free speech or I won’t have mine. As Voltaire said “I may disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Although Voltaire was a bit of an anti-Semite himself, adherence to his philosophy of free speech will do more good for our Jewish friends than the short-sighted political correctness that warren and warman would use to take away one of our most basic freedoms.
DION and LAYTON are lovers.
They love the losers that kill, the convicted, and the criminally insane.
Why else would Liberals/Dippers make up laws that release repeat offenders, make the convicted out to be the victim and support those that STONE the innocent to death by “bringing the troops home”.
The next election will have all their words thrown back at them.
I find Terry Glavin’s take on the matter of freedom of speech and freedom of the press somewhat convoluted: no surprise, he seems to be an unrepentant leftie.
The plight of Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh, the Afghani journalist, who was recently sentenced to death in a closed trial, is of deep concern to Mr. Glavin, as it should be to all of us.
However, Mr. Glavin then confesses that he thinks the Ezra Levant case to be a tempest in a teapot. A disclaimer: although Mr. Glavin appears to really favour the mindset of the CJC/Warman types to freedom of speech, he says he is reluctantly willing to side with Alan Borovoy, (Edmonton Journal) “who has been particularly vocal in denouncing what he views as misuse of the country’s human rights commissions . . .
“‘Nobody [sic] ever thought the commissions would have anything to do with expressions of opinion or the dissemination of news reports. That wasn’t on the table,’ [Borovoy] says.”
The left seems open to disingenuousness at every turn:
Alan Borovoy may be surprised at the totalitarian turn the HRCs have taken, but Canadians on the right side of the political spectrum—those who’ve mainly been hauled before these kangaroo courts—saw persecution coming decades ago and have been warning Canadians about its actuality for quite a while. If Alan Borovoy has been taken by surprise, it’s because—at best—he hasn’t been paying attention.
With no sense of irony at all, Glavin ends his message with: “Speaking of the proper context in which to place hyperbole about ‘state persecution’ in Canada [the Levant case], can we please at least bear a thought or two next Wednesday for the dozens of student activists the thug regime in Iran has jailed in recent weeks?”
Pardon? In democracies, where does Glavin think this kind of thuggery begins? We have to be on our guard from the ground up.
I think that Borovoy (whom Glavin seems to idolize) and Glavin have been asleep at the switch. (Good for Borovoy that he’s finally been willing to be shaken awake.)
I will certainly give some thought for those persecuted in the Middle East, where there is no such freedom as freedom of speech. Perhaps Mr. Glavin could “please at least bear a thought or two” for Canadians caught on the steep and slippery slope of thought control and the suppression of free speech. Right here. In Canada. I’m not making this up.
Give me a break. (And, if Mr. Glavin is interested, which I doubt, I’ve got an alarm clock I can spare.)
Thank you Kate for posting this story. Individual rights are the keystone to a successful democracy. People like Ibrahimi must be protected from these tyrannical government sponsored executions or our sacrifices of blood, sweat and tears will be greatly undermined.
It’s time to push for an Afghan Constitution. If there’s no will to protect individuals from Afghan government tyranny we to either find a way to effectively transplant that will fast or leave. Such a government, if it remains resistant to positive and sweeping change, does not deserve further charitable drinks of Canadian blood.
Terry Glavin is an Old School “True Man of the Left”. He walks the walk as they say. His blog is a must read for me as it serves to remind us that the left is not comprised solely of the Rabble.ca types. Yup I am a fan, he’s a good writer.
Warwick is right – “This kind of stuff is discouraging. If this is the regime we’re fighting to protect, what’s the point?”
This is how Islam deals with speech under shariah. This is what is creeping into Canada based on the hidden agenda of Liberal/left fascists.
However, when exposure takes care of the shadows, the cockroaches are open to the stomping foot.
Having said that, I agree with Fred. It’s getting better, even if incrementally. I’m sure this inhuman, savage sentence will be aborted the same way as the death sentence on the apostate was lifted a year or two ago.
Geez, this 7th century stuff is wierd. What’s wierder still is supposedly civil, modern humans like Warmen, Kinsella and the “officers” of the HRC are savages as well.
Sad.
I sent my MP’s office the link. I hope many of us do the same. A fire needs to be lit.
To those who say that we should just accept this an go on about the business of killing Talibanis … I say BS …. this is exactly the kind of thing that we’ve given our sons lives to put an end to.
Karzai needs a swift boot in the ass and those f*n mullahs who were behind this need to be rounded up just like their Talibuddies.
Sent the following e-mail to the Afghan Ambassador:
Your Excellency the Ambassador,
I am a supporter of the courageous Afghan government and am wholeheartedly in support of Canadian troops being in Afghanistan to assist it in the (re)building of a country that has suffered so much over the past thirty years.
I am therefore deeply disturbed by the fate of Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh, about whom I am sure I am not the first to inquire. I would like to be better informed of the circumstances and outcome of this affair.
If it is as stated in some reports, then this judicial abuse by religious clerics is unacceptable as it is precisely these backward ideologues that Canadians beileve are fighting.
Please re-assure me that every effort is being made to “modernise” the judicial system. It is time to leave the middle ages.
I did have a final paragraph and sign off, but to post that here would ahve revealed my secret identity.
lookout@6:04 pm,
Iran is a democracy, it holds elections. So did the soviet union. Indeed, Hitler weas elected.
We are getting confused between democracy and liberty.
Speaking of the proper context in which to place hyperbole about “state persecution” in Canada, can we please at least bear a thought or two next Wednesday…..
“Hyperbole” I’m bothered by that. Perhaps Terry Glavin isn’t getting that it is in small incremental government actions like the creation of benign appearing HRC’s tribunals that one day get you get to the end point of Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh’s death warrant for those that deviate from state/group rules.
Referring to Alan Borovoy opinion that defence of free speech must be absolute, Glavin’s response is…. “I’m still not 100 per cent convinced by his position on free-speech, though.”
Well, Terry, Steyn and Levant aren’t going to the gallows, but, political gallows over time get built in societies that don’t defend free speech as an absolute. Your concern for Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh is well placed, but, I would venture to guess that a person sentenced to death for mere words would find your equivocations over free speech as an absolute of little comfort and part of the problem.
I’m fortunate enough to have a CPC MP, and I emailed the link, and suggested it would be a sound-bite heaven if our Forces would liberate this guy.
Ian
Robert Wood….
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep having a vote about whats for dinner…
Liberty is a well armed sheep contesting the vote.
I can’t remember whos quote this is…
So explain once more Why We Fight.
Already done….I just hope that others will as well. Don’t just e-mail your MP, e-mail everyone in government/opposition/etc. that you can. Get this story out there to the powers that be.
For contact info for various government officials, check the bottom of my posting on this from the other day.
http://uncommontruths.blogspot.com/2008/01/afghan-journalism-student-to-be.html
Done. Do agree, send in more messages to whoever is listed.
Perhaps a public outcry on this end might help.
This is a crime that plays right into the hands of the enemy.
Taliban Jack is so worried about about the fate of the Taliban prisoners. You know, those people who would cut off your head at the earliest opportunity. Yet, not a peep from this refugee from the 60’s about this case. Same for Citizen Dion.
How low have we come as a society with this kind of logic being displayed in Parliament every day?
“A very small step forward, but progress nonetheless.”
No. Not progress. Fortunately, as Zip stated, our soldiers are not (or shouldn’t be) trying to turn that third world medieval cesspit into Canada. They were sent in to stabilize a crappy little country and keep it from becoming a breeding ground for the decaparazzi again. Anybody who thinks an Islamic state (read the Afghan constitution) is going to turn into anything other than a really terrible place to live for about 3/4 of the population is living in a dream world.
Occam’s Carbuncle: “Anybody who thinks an Islamic state (read the Afghan constitution) is going to turn into anything other than a really terrible place…is living in a dream world”
I agree entirely. It begins with the Constitution and runs downhill from there. Enshrine individual rights without regard to religion there and the remaining 3/4’s of Afghanistan’s people have real hope at living much better lives. Anything less will result in quick degradation back into a Taliban-like state with all the consequences we’ve experienced before.
Afghanistan must become of state by, for and of the people first. If it remains an islamic state first then our failure is guaranteed and the sacrifices wasted.
there is no point in our fighting to support and sustain islam. it will bite us on the ass one of these days.