REGIONAL NEWS
ASIA
2. AFHGANISTAN:
JOURNALIST SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR BLASPHEMY
A young journalist from Afghanistan has been sentenced to death for
blasphemy, report Reporters Without Borders and local news sources.
Sayed Parwiz Kambakhsh, a 23-year-old journalism student and reporter for
the newspaper "Jahan-e Naw ("The New World"), was given the death sentence
on 22 January in a trial held behind closed doors and without any lawyers
defending him, RSF says.
Kambakhsh was arrested in October 2007 for distributing what officials say
was anti-Islamic literature. He gave friends an article that said the
Prophet Mohammed ignored women's rights. He was also accused of possessing
anti-Islamic books and starting un-Islamic debates in class.
Kambakhsh's brother, prominent journalist Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, works for
the Institute of War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) and has recently come under
attack for reports he had written criticising local officials and warlords.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Reporters Without Borders
(RSF), IWPR and Afghan sources say they fear that the charges against
Kambakhsh were a pretext meant to stop his brother from reporting.
Join an international appeal and send a message demanding Kambakhsh's
immediate release on KabulPress.org: http://tinyurl.com/2pnthj
For more info on the case, visit these links:
- RSF: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=25154
- CPJ: http://tinyurl.com/2vr8sj


------ IFEX COMMUNIQUÉ VOL 17 NO 03 22 JANUARY 2008 ------
The "IFEX Communiqué" is the weekly newsletter of the International Freedom
of Expression eXchange (IFEX), a global network of 81 organisations working
to defend and promote the right to free expression. IFEX is managed by
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression ( http://www.cjfe.org ).