Yaqub Looks To Italy To Help Brother

Appeal by brother of Afghan journalist convicted of saying that men and women are equal

MILAN – Yaqub Perwiz Kambakhsh, 28, is in Italy to draw attention to the plight of his brother, an Afghan journalist sentenced to 20 years in prison for asserting that women have the same rights as men. “Italy has a moral duty to Afghanistan. Since the 2001 war, Italy has been committed to financing the reconstruction of the Afghan judicial system, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. Why does it do nothing to halt this injustice inflicted on Sayed?” he demands.

It all began in 2007, when the 23-year-old Sayed, a journalist working for Mazar El Sharif-based media in the north of the country, claimed provocatively on his blog that “extremist mullahs” were misinterpreting the Koran. He wondered why, if Islam allows a man to take four wives, a woman can’t have four husbands. Sayed is an obscure provincial reporter but his words caused deep shock in an Afghanistan in the throes of religious restoration and a wholesale return to tradition. Sayed was arrested, charged with blasphemy and on 27 October 2007 he was sentenced to death. At that point, international humanitarian associations stepped in and media around the world picked up the story. The Afghan president Hamid Karzai was even asked to intervene. But the president proved reluctant. “He can’t speak out personally on behalf of the journalist. Karzai is struggling and losing consensus. He’s afraid he won’t win the presidential elections scheduled for late August 2009. He needs the Pashtun vote and the support of religious circles. He might say something in defence of Sayed, but only after the election”, explain well-informed observers. The compromise was to commute the death penalty to imprisonment, which was done on 1 October 2008, when Sayed’s sentence was converted to 20 years in jail.

The koran states that men are superior to women in strength, intellect, and faith. How can this infidel say such a thing that men and women are equal? This just can't be. Old Mo said that allah told gabriel to tell Old Mo that men are superior over women.