The US is taking an amazingly low profile on a very serious problem. If Bush wants the world to take him seriously when he talks about democracy, he better find a minute to support democracy. The initial report was that Afghan student journalist Parwez Kambaksh was found guilty and sentenced to death because he downloaded and distributed a document about women's rights. Thanks to a campaign by The Independent (UK), this disgraceful situation has been brought to the attention of people around the world and the Karzai government is starting to show interest in this publicly embarrassing situation. As the story makes the rounds some additional information is starting to surface which helps explain why the puppet government previously showed such limited interest in this gross violation of human rights.
Some media groups, including Reporters Without Borders and the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, allege the charges against Kambaksh are in retaliation for his brother's investigative journalism articles, which detail human rights abuses at the hands of political and paramilitary factions in northern Afghanistan.
Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, Kambaksh's brother and a leading independent journalist in the region, has named government officials who extort money from locals in some articles, said Jean MacKenzie, country director of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting.
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