Disturbing news from Afghanistan. Sayed Parvez Kambakhsh, the young journalist whose death sentence for ‘blasphemy’, passed in a four-minute trial in Mazar-i-Sharif, provoked international outrage last year, has apparently been sentenced to 20 years in prison by Afghanistan’s Supreme Court.
After Kambakhsh was allowed to appeal the original death sentence, it was widely hoped that a Supreme Court trial would lead to an acquittal, or, failing that, a pardon from President Karzai.
However, a letter appearing on the Kabul Press website, said to be from Sayed’s brother Yaqub, claims that Sayed was sentenced last month, with neither press nor public informed of the decision.
You can read the letter here
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[...] News is emerging that Sayed Parvez Kambakhsh, the young Afghan journalist who appealed a death sentence for blasphemy handed down last year by a Mazar-i-Sharif court, has had a sentence of 20 years imposed by Afghanistan’s Supreme Court in Kabul. The sentence was apparently passed in secret last month, with the knowledge of President Karzai and US administrators in Kabul. [...]
[...] News is emerging that Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh, the young Afghan journalist who appealed a death sentence for blasphemy handed down last year by a Mazar-i-Sharif court has had a sentence of 20 years imposed by Afghanistan’s supreme court in Kabul. The sentence was apparently passed in secret last month, with the knowledge of President Karzai and US administrators in Kabul. [...]