Escape from a fragile, fickle Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — It happened quietly, out of public scrutiny, right after Afghanistan’s presidential elections two weeks ago. An international cause celebre that had been a diplomatic thorn in the side of President Hamed Karzai was finally resolved: Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh, the 25-year-old journalism student who spent nearly two years in prison for downloading irreverent materials from the internet, was released and spirited out of Afghanistan.

“He is now in a European country,” said Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, Kambakhsh’s elder brother, himself a prominent journalist in Afghanistan.

Ibrahimi was aware of his brother’s release, but was not allowed to tell anyone, even his mother. It was not until The Independent, a British newspaper, broke the story this week that he made the phone call.

“Our family is very happy,” said Ibrahimi.

The backstory of Parwez Kambakhsh says much about the fragile and fickle state of Afghan politics in the leadup to last month’s disputed presidential election, and about the strict social mores that govern Afghan society.

What started out as an academic dispute in the northern town of Mazar-e-Sharif evolved into an international incident that almost cost Kambakhsh his life. The young man was accused of downloading materials on women’s status in Islam and distributing them to his classmates at Balkh University. He denies the charge, but admitted during the trial that he was having an argument with his professor about women’s rights. The material in question, originally titled “Saving Iranian Women from Islam,” was controversial in the extreme. It was penned by an Iranian whose pseudonym, Arrash Bekhoda, translates to “Arrash the Godless.” It questioned and even ridiculed several tenets of Islam.

This was enough to get the outspoken Kambakhsh arrested in October 2007, and condemned to death in January 2008.

It took months of appeals to get the case moved from the northern province of Balkh to Kabul, where Kambakhsh’s family felt he could get a fairer trial. Along the way the defendant lost several lawyers, some of whom were threatened; others simply quit because they did not think they had a chance of winning.

They were right: in weeks of court sessions the young student was repeatedly browbeaten by the judge, Taliban-era holdover Abdul Salaam Qazizada, who demanded to know why he had committed the crime, even though Kambakhsh consistently denied the charges. He was accused of serious character flaws such as telling off-color jokes, sending picture of girls through his mobile phone and asking too many questions in class.

During the long drawn-out agony of the trial, with multiple delays, repeated requests for information and re-examination of witnesses, the diplomatic community limited itself to pro forma demarches.

“We cannot be seen to interfere too much, since we are trying to encourage an independent judiciary,” said one European diplomat.

In October 2008, Kambakhsh’s death sentence was commuted to 20 years in prison. Once the Supreme Court upheld the verdict, the pressure began in earnest.

The case was raised at nearly every international meeting attended by Karzai; then-secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lobbied for Kambakhsh, as did British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. The Norwegian Embassy in Kabul took the lead on the case, while the United Nations made repeated diplomatic overtures to secure Kambakhsh’s freedom. Karzai made dozens of promises to almost all comers that the young man would be released. “I will treat him as my own son,” he remarked to one visitor.

But several months after Karzai had reportedly signed Kambakhsh’s pardon, family and friends were starting to despair. When news broke in July that Karzai had pardoned five convicted drug dealers, while passing over the notorious Kambakhsh case, it seemed that Kambakhsh might spend many years behind bars.

“Kambakhsh is a small person,” said Hakimi, a journalist in Kabul. “The law in Afghanistan is like a spider’s web. Big, important people, like [those drug dealers] are like hornets; they can burst right through. But Kambakhsh is a fly. He was just trapped and eaten.”

Eventually, however, the campaign to free Kambakhsh paid off.

Ibrahimi will say only that his brother was saved “through diplomatic means,” although the timing of Kambakhsh’s release, immediately following the presidential poll, seemed more than fortuitous.

The U.N. was initially closed-lipped about the news, but eventually issued a statement saying “We respect the decision made by the Afghan Government and are relieved to see the release of Mr. Kambakhsh."

Privately, a U.N. official said “We are all just very relieved to see him free and safe.” The official would not, however, give any more information on Kambakhsh’s whereabouts.

There were most likely two main reasons for the ultra-secrecy surrounding Kambakhsh’s pardon. The country is in the midst of hotly contested presidential elections, and Karzai, who is almost certain to emerge the winner, did not want to risk alienating his ultra-conservative constituency. Many people in Afghanistan applauded Kambakhsh’s death sentence, and the religious scholars were not pleased when his punishment was downgraded to “only” 20 years. With the results of the Aug. 20 vote still not clear and the threat of violence hanging in the air, Karzai and his team would not want to be stirring controversy.

The other issue is Kambakhsh’s own safety, and that of his family. From the outset it was clear that the young man would never be able to go back to his old life. He had been branded an “infidel,” his family had been threatened, and overtures were made to various countries to see where Kambakhsh might receive asylum.

It is not yet clear what will happen next; Kambakhsh has four brothers and three sisters, and inquiries were initially made to see if the entire family could be moved.

For the moment, all involved are keeping silent.

“We are just thinking what to do,” said Kambakhsh’s brother, Ibrahimi.