Afghan Court Revokes Death Sentence for Student Journalist

An Afghan appeal court has overturned the death sentence of a student journalist who was accused of blasphemy after distributing anti-Islamic material, instead sentencing him to 20 years in prison.

Parwez Kambakhsh, 24, whose plight prompted an international campaign to save him, was studying journalism at Balkh University in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and writing for local newspapers when he was arrested in October 2007.

Prosecutors alleged that Kambakhsh disrupted classes by asking questions about women's rights under Islam. They said he illegally distributed an article that suggested the Prophet Mohammad had ignored the rights of women.

In January this year, a lower court in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif sentenced Kambakhsh to death after a trial that took place without a lawyer to represent him.

That sentence was overturned as unfair by three judges today.

One judge, Abdul Salaam Qazizada, told the court: "The court has sentenced Parwez Kambakhsh to 20 years in jail for the crime he has committed. But this is not the final hearing, he has the right to appeal."

John Dempsey, a US lawyer and campaigner for reform of the Afghan judicial system, said the decision was flawed.

"It was not a fair trial. Procedurally, he did not have any of his rights respected. He was detained far longer than he should have been legally held. The defence lawyer was not even allowed to meet the witnesses until the night before the trial."

After Kambaksh was sentenced to death in January, Muslim clerics welcomed the decision and there were public demonstrations against him.

In the west, the decision was seen as showing Afghanistan's slide towards an ultra-conservative view on religious and individual freedoms.

The organization Reporters Without Borders called on the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to intervene. The International Federation of Journalists denounced the lower court's closed-door trial and Kambakhsh's lack of a lawyer.