Sayad Parwez Kambaksh is a journalism student at Balkh University in Afghanistan. Last year, he downloaded a paper criticising Islam off the internet and discussed it with his lecturers and classmates. And for that, he has been sentenced to death.
So much for the idea that the Karzai government is a modernising force which will guarantee basic human rights. Rather, it's clear that Afghanistan has no freedom of speech, no freedom of religion, and no freedom of academic inquiry, which stages unfair trials and imposes draconian sentences for spurious "crimes". And we're supporting that. Currently, New Zealand has a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Bamiyan Province, which is indirectly helping NATO to prop up this government.
We simply shouldn't be doing this anymore. We'd never send troops to prop up Iran's theocracy (quite rightly, too), and we shouldn't send them to prop up Afghanistans. Instead, we should bring them home.
(Hat tip: JimBobby)
