Journalist has been sentenced to death

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) appealed on Wednesday to the Bundeskanzler, Angela Merkel, and to the Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeyer, to use their good offices with the Afghan President Karzai for the quashing of the death sentence against the journalist Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh. The death sentence was pronounced yesterday against the 23-year old reporter of the newspaper „Jahan-i Naw” (New World) after an illegal trial in the province of Balkh (North Afghanistan) for disparaging Islam. „Once again Islam is being misused to silence critics of the increasing power of the war-lords”, said the GfbV Asia correspondent, Ulrich Delius. „If this illegal sentence is carried out no explanation can be given to any German soldier as to the values he is defending at the Hindukush.”

It is outrageous that the deputy public prosecutor, Hafizullah Khaliqyar, has threatened the protesting Afghan journalists with arrest if they continue their protests. „Such a travesty of justice can only be seen as a sign of the growing influence of the warlords in Afghan justice as well”, said Delius.

The young journalist was arrested on 27th October 2007 following the distribution of a text downloaded from the internet at the Balkh University, in which according to the authorities Islam was supposed to have been attacked. Kaambakhsh denied at the time having written or distributed the text which carried his name.

Journalists in Afghanistan are convinced that with this illegal sentence Kaambakhsh’s elder brother is to be silenced. Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is likewise a journalist and has the reputation of being the foremost critic of the warlords. Ibrahimi, who has reported as correspondent from North Afghanistan for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), which is sponsored by the European Union, was after several critical reports on the warlords interrogated by the secret service and threatened with death. When no charges could be made against him his brother was made responsible in the sense of collective family liability. Following the arrest of Kaambakhsh the Afghan secret service spread the rumour that the two brothers had been disparaging Islam in the interest of foreign powers.

„There is an acute danger that the young journalist will be executed since President Karzai withdrew in the autumn of 2007 the moratorium which had been imposed in the spring of 2004 on enforcement of the death penalty”, said Delius. Since that time more than a dozen condemned persons have been executed. In the middle of December already the GfbV brought the case to the attention of the Foreign Office, members of parliament and the media.