USCIRF Calls For Release of Afghan Student Sentenced for Blasphemy

On Friday, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging the U.S. to press Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai to release Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh. Kambakhsh is a 23 year old student and journalist who has been sentenced to death in Afghanistan for circulating material insulting to Islam. (USCIRF release.) As previously reported, Kambakhsh apparently distributed to other students an article he found on the Internet that commented on Quranic verses about women. USCIRF says the U.S. must encourage Afghanistan to protect freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief. The agency's letter decried the way in which Afghanistan is enforcing the provision in its Constitution that provides: "no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam."