A 23-year-old journalist and college student has been sentenced to death by an Afghan court for publicly questioning the sexist practices of Islam. According to court records, Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh posed blasphemous questions in class and distributed an article in the same vein, to which the sick bastard added two — or possibly THREE — paragraphs elaborating his own concerns about Muslim oppression of women.
Since his sentence in January, an international outcry has persuaded the judge to allow Kambakhsh to appeal his conviction. Seems fair seeing as he had no legal representation at his trial.. but it’s been understandably difficult digging up a lawyer with the cojones to represent this kid.
So far the appeal has consisted of a pro se statement in which Kambakhsh argued that pursuit of truth is man’s highest calling, and thoughtful debate is the best method for illuminating reality. Is Islam so delicate that it must be protected from scrutiny? If our aim is truth (rather than bolstering traditional paradigms at the cost of reason), then we should have no qualms about careful examination of ideas and beliefs. Light doesn’t make truth different, it merely makes it visible.
Or at least I’m pretty sure that’s what he meant to say. But, perhaps after passing the gallows on his way into court, his appeal actually went a little more like this:
[Kambakhsh] rejected accusations from some of his classmates and teachers, that he had insulted Islam and the Koran and had distributed an article which said Prophet Mohammad had ignored the rights of women. “As a Muslim … I never allow myself to do such a thing. These are totally lies,” he told the court.
June 21st, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Well, congratulations Crimgirl! You have succeeded in allowing me to delay my work yet again (albeit for just 15 minutes). I always enjoy reading your page but I wish it would be updated more regularly. There is so much crazy shit going on out there! Anyway, I think you were overly harsh on the Islamic religion in this article. I believe that many religions have guidlines relating to authority, gender differences, and even prophets. If I read your article correctly, the young man is being charged by an Afghan court, not by Islam itself. In other words, there may not be anything wrong with Islam, but rather the interpretations of its proper implementations among different groups of people. Criticizing Islam in this instance would be akin to blaming Christianity for women not being able to vote in America until relatively recently and/or the American slave trade. Anyway, I thought your article on the MySpace kid was great; I could read that shit all day.
July 4th, 2008 at 12:36 am
Hey Sammy-boy! Thanks for the comment. I’m always surprised to see someone is reading this besides mumsy…. But any friend of Heather’s who’s bought me a cosmo is a friend of mine.
I see what you mean about prosecution being carried out by the Afghan court rather than Islam, but even after America’s manifest democracy (as it were), there’s not much separation between church and state in Afghanistan. The constitution still says Islam is the official religion and apostasy is punishable by death. So in effect, there’s not much difference between religion and the state.
I don’t think the comparison to Christianity and women voting works either… until the 20th century women were 2nd-class citizens virtually worldwide, no matter what religious values were dominant in a given culture. In fact, it was western nations w/ Christian values who were first to formally recognize women’s rights.
But anyway, back to voting.. Your example would only work if Americans had been arrested (or sentenced to death, as the case may be) for questioning sexist voting laws. I think a better comparison to the Afghan situation would be Stalin’s Russia, where people were arrested, or worse, for disagreeing with the ideology of the regime.
Disclaimer: I’d likely argue if you said the earth revolved around the sun.
And that’s what you get for being nice enough to read my site and leave a comment. I hope you’ve learned your lesson.