PEN Canada Honorary Member Sayed Parwez KambakhshOctober 24, 2008
On October 21, 2008, a Court of Appeal in Kabul, after a four-month delay in
proceedings, commuted the sentence of Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh for blasphemy from execution to 20 years in prison. Kambakhsh’s lawyer is filing an appeal against his conviction expected to be heard by the Supreme Court on Sunday October 26, 2008.
“We were shocked and are greatly distressed that Mr. Kambakhsh was not released, but instead given a 20-year sentence by the Court of Appeal," said Nelofer Pazira, president of PEN Canada, currently in Kabul where she has met with Canadian officials. "Mr. Kambakhsh has declared his innocence, and this was confirmed by a witness at the hearing. We very much hope that this sentence will be swiftly revoked, through the judicial process of appeal to the Supreme Court currently underway.”
At the brief hearing on October 21st, one witness admitted that he had been forced to make a statement condemning Kambakhsh. According to an Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) report, a witness known as Hamed, a fellow student, retracted his original statement: ‘“I was forced,” he maintained, telling the court that a professor of literature had taken him to the university director’s office the previous October and there, two strangers, whom he supposed to be from the National Security Directorate, instructed
him to write a statement against Kambakhsh. “I wrote what they told me,” he said. “I was scared. They threatened my mother, my father.”’
Since January, there have repeatedly been calls on President Karzai by the international community to pardon Kambakhsh, but he has not done so thus far, citing the principle of the independence of the judicial process—a process most observers consider to be deeply compromised. Mr. Karzai is also facing an election in Afghanistan next year so there may be pressure from opposition politicians and conservative elements. In spite of this, there have been brave, sporadic demonstrations, in some twenty provinces of Afghanistan, protesting the sentencing to death of Kambakhsh. Freedom of expression is guaranteed by the constitution of Afghanistan.
BACKGROUND: On October 27, 2007, Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh, a 24-year-old
journalism student, was arrested in the northern Afghanistan city of Mazar-e-Sharif for allegedly downloading and distributing an article from the Internet critical of Islam’s treatment of women. Kambakhsh claims to have signed a confession under torture while in detention. On January 22, 2008, he was sentenced to death by execution in closed proceedings, during which he was given no access to legal counsel, and not permitted to defend himself. His family then used their own resources to have the case moved to Kabul for appeal.
In May, 2008, the case opened at the Court of Appeal in Kabul, but was adjourned in June after four sessions, until October 21st. Kambakhsh’s lawyer, Mohammad Afzal Nooristani, stated that this lengthy adjournment violates all time limits deemed legal by the penal code, and that Kambakhsh should be released “on these grounds alone.”
(Nooristani received death threats when he took on the case earlier this year.)
On January 30, 2008, PEN Canada President Nelofer Pazira wrote to Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressing PEN Canada’s concerns and urging the Canadian government to take action; in June 2008, at PEN Canada’s AGM, Kambakhsh was adopted as an Honorary Member and the meeting
http://www.pencanada.ca/media/Kambakhsh_statement-Oct24-final.pdf
powerful 15-minute documentary by award winning
filmmaker Min Sook Lee.
Sedition
directed by Min Sook Lee
At The Toronto Palestinian Film Festival
Saturday November 1st 6:30pm
Bloor Street Cinema 506 Bloor St West
Tickets $5-$10
Boonaa Mohammad and Rafeef Ziadah spill poetry through the streets of
Toronto. Their words slo-mo border traffic, kick at the glass towers of the
finance district and seep into the underground. Spliced to the throb and beat
of music by Lal.
for more information visit The Toronto Palestinian Film Festival at http://www.tpff.ca/
http://www.pencanada.ca/media/sedition_film.pdf
PEN Canada commissioned Sedition as part of our ongoing art-based initiative
called The TAXI Project. The short documentary aims to connect the themes of
freedom of expression, exile, and censorship to young people growing up in
Toronto. The result is a powerful 15-minute documentary by award winning
filmmaker Min Sook Lee.
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