Men and women in Afghanistan still have a long way to go. Who knows who is the government now, is it the Taliban, the Mullahs, President Karzai.
Mr Kambaksh was found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to death last year for circulating an essay on women's rights which questioned verses in the Koran.
misogyny much?
This is a 23-year-old student journalist. Under global pressure the case was turned over but
It said the upper house [of the Senate] approved the death sentence conferred on Mr Kambaksh by a city court in Mazar-e-Sharif.
It also strongly criticised what it called those institutions and foreign sources which, it said, had tried to pressurise the country's government and judiciary as they pursued people like Mr Kambaksh
women's rights = death?
Luckily there was more outrage and The Independent started a Petition, the UN spoke out and when he was allowed to appeal it turned out he had not had any sort of fair trial so they bumped him down from a death sentence to 20 years in prison.
he was convicted by three mullahs, in secret, without access to a lawyer.
also
in October, the key prosecution witness withdrew his testimony, claiming he had been forced to lie on pain of death.
However, the appeals went on
The prosecution then appealed to the Supreme Court to reinstate the death sentence. The defence appealed to quash his conviction altogether.
Today the 20-year sentence stands and the only way it will be cut is with a Presidential pardon.
Religion is one thing but forced dogma without ability to question makes not only women oppressed but men as well. All he did was download an article that says passages can be interpreted in ways other than the oppression of women (it's not clear that he actually distributed this article since the key witness said he was forced to lie).
Now why should we care? Isn't oppression of women just their way of life. No, women's rights in Afghanistan were progressing, just like in the US though a few decades lagging.
Timeline
Then the Russians came in and the US gave the Mujahideen power. Women still worked during this time and made up half of the workforce however, the Mujahideen (the 'freedom fighters' with funding from Carter and Reagan eras) were not united and fighting each other and using rape as a weapon. The Taliban was welcomed in and then women's rights went kaput. It's not religion that says men and women are not equal it's a power hungry corrupt government.