Afghan student escapes death sentence
Afghanistan authorities want the student jailed for 20 years
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Wednesday, 22, Oct 2008 10:38
An Afghan student whose death sentence was quashed by an appeals court in Kabul should be freed immediately, Amnesty International says.
The human rights group says student Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh deserves to walk free after he was instead handed a 20-year jail sentence for "blasphemy".
Mr Kambakhsh had reportedly downloaded information from the internet that examined the role of women in Islam before adding commentary and distributing it at a university.
After his arrest in October 2007 he was sentenced to death on January 22nd, adding him to the list of up to 110 people believed to be on death row in Afghanistan.
Amnesty's Asia Pacific director Sam Zarifi is frustrated by the jail sentence, given the country's penal code specifies a maximum sentence of five years' imprisonment for his crime.
"There are no legal grounds for either his conviction or this sentence," Mr Zarifi said.
"While it can only be a positive step that he is no longer on death row, he should be freed immediately."
Amnesty wants Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai to announce an immediate halt on all executions in Afghanistan as a first step towards abolishing the death penalty.
Last December the UN general assembly passed a resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty. Like Afghanistan it has been ignored by the governments of the US, China and others.