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Afghan Student Gets 20 Years For Blasphemy
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Oct 22, 2008 02:17 PM
from the consider-this-a-warning dept.
from the consider-this-a-warning dept.
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "Despite nationwide public support for his initial death sentence, a three-judge appeals court has reduced the sentence of Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh to 20 years in prison. Kambakhsh was charged with circulating an article on women's rights that he found online. From the article: 'Family members have said Kambakhsh was beaten and threatened with death until he signed a confession and that local journalists who expressed support for him were warned they would be arrested if they persisted.'"
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not the real cause (Score:5, Insightful)
He wasn't really charged for the blasphemy, it's because he was very critical of the government and some of their corrupt friends, and they found something useful to charge him with.
"Kambakhsh's journalist brother, Yaqoub Ibrahimi, has said he believes the blasphemy charges were a pretext and that Ibrahimi was the authorities' real target because of articles he wrote about abuses by local warlords and militias."
They beat a confession out of him
Re:not the real cause (Score:5, Funny)
AHA! I knew he was connected to the liberal media! They just don't want America to win.
Parent
Re:not the real cause (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not the way the Afghan public sees it. And ultimately in today's world, your conviction is heavily determined by the public's or more correctly the media's opinion of your guilt. If the vocal majority think something should be a crime, it will become one.
But, do you think that western society is really any better in this regard? A thought experiment if you will. Replace the women's rights pamphlet with a (non-explicit) circular defending paedophilia. Do you think our society would still protect your freedom of speech if you began circulating that? How long before they beat a confession out of you? Who's going to defend you?
"Blasphemy" as a concept is not restricted to religious matters. There are many things that even supposedly free societies will not allow to be discussed. As George Carlin said, you don't have rights. You have privileges. Privileges that can be revoked at any time.
Parent
Re:not the real cause (Score:4, Insightful)
A nuanced opinion?! Blasphemy!
Parent
Re:not the real cause (Score:4, Insightful)
Replace the women's rights pamphlet with a (non-explicit) circular defending paedophilia. Do you think our society would still protect your freedom of speech if you began circulating that? How long before they beat a confession out of you? Who's going to defend you?
I don't think I'd get 20 years in jail for doing that. And if I get beaten up, it won't be with the government's approval. As for the confession, a confession to what? Where will they find evidence of me committing paedophilia? Will it be in a secret trial, like the trial for this Afghan student? Western society is far better in this regard than what you try to make it look like it is.
Parent
Re:not the real cause (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm glad to hear that. For a moment I thought I was helping to support a war in order to establish theocracy. This is just good old fashioned secular corruption and tyranny.
nothing to see here.
Parent
And yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
What utter rubbish. There isn't much that causes more physical harm and dependence than heroin.
Parent
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Informative)
Tabacco causes far more being legal, cheap and highly addictive (far more than heroin).
In fact (according to the American Cancer Society circa 1993 for the USA) annual death statistics are:
Total tobacco related: 434,000
Heroin/Morphine: 2,400
And to sate your curiosity, here are the other common killers:
Alcohol-related: 105,000
Car accidents: 49,000
Suicide: 31,000
AIDS: 31,000
Murder: 22,000
Fire: 4,000
Cocaine: 3,300
Food for though, eh!
Parent
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
That isn't a fair depiction of the mortality rate though, unless you believe that there are equal ammounts of heroin users and tobacco users.
Parent
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Informative)
Marijuana: 0 (It does not have to be smoked prohibition raises the price to where smoking is more economical for the user)
Parent
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. There are old heroin addicts. There are no old speed freaks. In fact, long term, even alcohol is worse for you than heroin. I would hardly call heroin safe, though.
Parent
Re:And yet... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
All he said was... (Score:5, Funny)
All he said was "That piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah".
As a Canadian (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the government my countrymen are fighting and dying for?
No thanks.
Re:As a Canadian (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
They hate us for our freedom, that we gave them (Score:5, Insightful)
Where are the psychopatic positivists now ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, this argumentation is common on Slashdot when the topic isn't free speech or DRM circumvention. Oh the different standards.
Let this be a reminder that laws can be stupid and evil, and do not define right and wrong.
Re:absurd (Score:5, Funny)
You said it. God Damn blasphemers.
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:absurd (Score:5, Interesting)
Of all the strange "crimes" that human beings have legislated of nothing, "blasphemy" is the most amazing - with "obscenity" and "indecent exposure" fighting it out for the second and third place.
---- Robert A. Heinlein
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't forget "use" and "possession" crimes. They should be in the top 10.
AC said: "planning crimes *is* a crime"
If that were true, crime dramas would be dead in the water. So would real life law enforcement. And security companies. And pretty much every job that requires someone to predict or understand the behavior of criminals. Even if someone were to intend to commit a crime, they should not be punished unless they actually attempt to carry it out. Everyone should be given a chance, unless you thought Minority Report represented a good idea.
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Funny)
You are right! The human rights abuses in Afghanistan are intolerable!
We should go and liberate the Afghan people... er, oops! Sorry, my bad!
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
As a Canadian, I've been cautiously supportive of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai has pleaded, in person, with the Canadian Parliament to keep troops in Afghanistan for as long as we can afford to, citing that a swift withdrawal by Western nations would undoubtedly result in the country being torn apart by warlords and extremists. This is a sentiment that I can agree with and support in principle.
Then I hear about these ridiculous trumped-up charges based on Islamic law. Yes, Middle-Eastern culture is fundamentally different than ours. No, we don't have a right to tell other nations how to run themselves socially.
But the question we have to ask ourselves is do we want to be in bed with a nation, irregardless of that nation's values, that oppresses its own people?
This is the kind of situation that calls for passive condemnation. If our troops are in a country to help them rebuild their society in the name of democracy, how can we reconcile that with the way the new regime oppresses its citizens? It becomes a "lesser of the evils" argument.
If this is the society we are helping to build, then perhaps we shouldn't be helping at all.
Parent
rights, and obligations (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you miss the part that said "Despite nationwide public support for his initial death sentence"? This isn't the Afghan government opressing it's citizens, it's the citizens asking the government to kill this man.
Which means that we are the ones saying the citizens don't have a right to determine the laws of their land. I wonder who the totalitarians are in this case.
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, a long time ago, the citizens of America in the south didn't have a problem with slavery.
Does that make it right?
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Interesting)
um you should get your story straight. there are 50 separate governments within the USA, not all of them have death penalties and of those that do, less than half kills more than one person a decade. The only notable exception is the same idiot state that brought us George Bush.
the USA is closer to european union than to one country. A fact that is often forgotten.
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
Mostly because the rest of the world suffers at the hand of the Federal Government. Were the states to actually act and reign it in, then they might be aware of the 50 governments that make up the Union.
Parent
The United States are.... (Score:5, Informative)
Pre-Civil war, when one referred to the US, it was in the form of "The United States are...." After the Civil War, it became "The United States is...." so it seems we thought of the states as sovereign entities, much like the "city states" of Greece. The word "state" itself, actually originally refers to a sovereign entity (e.g. "Secretary of State", "state sponsored terrorism") whereas a province is a dependent subdivision.
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not even difficult. Figure out what portion of your "foreign aid" is in the form of weaponry designed to kill people, and you'll have it.
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Informative)
22% is "military aid," which still leaves the US as the #1 producer of non-military foreign aid. Now figure out what percentage of that 22% is in the form of disaster relief and other aid operations using the US military (classified as "military aid" by the state department.
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
Only if you calculate it the way most favourable to yourself.
What is most fair, if you're comparing the generosity of different groups ?
Comparing which portion of their wealth the different groups give?
Comparing how much each group gives pro person ?
Or comparing how much each group gives in total ?
Only if you do the latter does USA look good. But this is the view where a 300 people group donating $1000 is consideres more generous than a 30 person group donating $500, which is frankly absurd.
If you do it per capita, then the leader is luxembur at $500/person/year, followed by 10 other countries above $100. USA is at $25.
If you do it relative to wealth, then Norway is top with donating $10 for every $1000 in gdp (i.e 1%), USA is horribly, embarassingly low on the list, donating not 1%, not 0.5%, but less than 0.2% of GDP.
It's not much to brag about that you've donated 10 times as much as sweden -- when you're a country 50 times as large as sweden.
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Informative)
Most of the north didn't want to get rid of slavery either. Nor did most of the soldiers fighting for the north.
[citation needed]
Where do you think they put the black people who fought with them? The front lines.. in front of all the white people.. so they died first.
This is the exact opposite of the truth. Right up until the end of the war (and again in the World Wars) black US soldiers had to fight their own command structure to be allowed to fight on the front lines. Of course, this was still deeply racist, but it was racism of a very different kind than the Confederacy's.
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, its both.
The Afghan government is, in fact, oppressing some of its own citizens, including this man. That this oppression is also popular does not stop it from being government oppression. Nor does the fact that there is a widespread support for even more extreme oppression than is being committed. Indeed, government oppression is often popular (often because the government has deliberately set up the victims of that oppression to take the blame for problems in society, or because the government has conducted the oppression as a way of winning plaudits from a society that already blames those being oppressed for problems in society), and oftentimes the mob supports even more extreme measures than those the government enacts in its oppression.
There is a reason that, e.g., America's founders did not view a popularly elected government with unlimited unauthority as a suitable safeguard of liberty, and instead set up an almost totally hamstrung government and then, when that was clearly on the road to failure from lack of sufficient authority to get things done, a more powerful but still tightly restricted government.
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
Well you know what ? Some of those people actually do "get it", that it's a little crazy to kill someone because they can tell the difference between a woman and a goat.
Those people often emigrate to Canada, the U.S. or Western Europe, to live with like-minded people. Maybe they realize their homeland is too far gone to be saved.
Regardless of what we think, humanity runs its course. The best thing we can do is support those who seek change, either at home or abroad. In that same stream of consciousness, we must protect our own values, just as religious fanatics protect theirs.
You can't tell others how to life their lives, but you can stop them from ruining yours!
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't say they should. However I believe we should choose our battles, and if we choose to tell others how to behave, the same standard should be applied to us. I believe we should not kill people at all.
Again, the same should be said about the United States. Removing the Taliban from government is not going to change the fact that the majority of the population believes this man should be killed. How exactly we go about convincing millions of people not to execute people is the unknown question. We can't even do it in some countries that claim to be civilized.
Please look into the politics of the "War on Drugs".
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
It is really tough to consider that these flagrant transgressions still go on in todays environment.
Define "todays environment" Because this is Afghanistan we're talking about, not a developed country.
Different societies have different values. And Americans are usually guilty of ethnocentrism when they discuss the world at large.
As far as I'm concerned, legal punishment of any severity for simply challenging the beliefs of the majority is not acceptable anywhere. If that makes me ethnocentric, then so be it.
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
Your statement is, as the topic, absurd.
1) You aren't challenging the majority's opinion. You're deciding that your opinion is correct and acting on it.
2) In acting on your opinion, you interfere unjustly with whomever's stuff you've decided to take.
He was accused of challenging an idea and sentenced to death for it. Yet challenging an idea confers no harm on others. Imposing ones religious beliefs and executing those who question them DOES confer harm. As does your taking of others' property.
Parent
Re:absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
He was accused of challenging an idea and sentenced to death for it. Yet challenging an idea confers no harm on others.
It does if your reality consists of the belief that blasphemy and enciting others to blasphemy will literally send them to hell. That's one reason religion is dangerous. It's not based on a rational reality. It's based on extreme beliefs that aren't supported by the best forms of truth we know (scientific fact), and it can therefore be manipulated and twisted to vilify others.
Parent
Re:Fighting for Freedom = Suppression of Voice? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Fighting for Freedom = Suppression of Voice? (Score:5, Insightful)
A) They're not forcing men and boys to grow beards
B) Girls and women are allowed to attend schools
C) They're not blowing or destroying religious icons from other religions or artifacts from 2,000 years ago
D) Roads, an electric grid and sewer systems are being (very slowly) built
E) Every person who wants to vote is allowed to
F) And most importantly, women are not being forced to wear burkhas if they don't want to
Granted this current ruling is nonsense and Kharzai knows it, but he is very weak and doesn't have the backing to overturn the verdict.
I'm not saying the current government is perfect. Far from it. But to compare this government, which is working with other countries to attempt to undo nearly 40 years of war and strife, to the Taliban is disingenuous. It will take, at a minimum, ten years to begin to change the mindset of the people, specifically the warlords and the men, to allow greater freedoms.
Parent
Re:20 YEARS for blasphemy!? (Score:4, Funny)
Sorry, couldn't help myself
Parent
Re:Me thinks (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:What does this have to do with tech news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps it falls under "stuff that matters".
Parent
Re:We used burn them at the stake (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, they were not burned at the stake, they were hanged and one man was pressed to death.
Parent
Re:There is at least one thing we can do (Score:5, Insightful)
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