Afghan Student Gets 20 Years For Blasphemy

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "Despite nationwide public support for his initial death sentence, a three-judge appeals court has reduced the sentence of Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh to 20 years in prison. Kambakhsh was charged with circulating an article on women's rights that he found online. From the article: 'Family members have said Kambakhsh was beaten and threatened with death until he signed a confession and that local journalists who expressed support for him were warned they would be arrested if they persisted.'"

Comments

Re:absurd

[peragrin]

um you should get your story straight. there are 50 separate governments within the USA, not all of them have death penalties and of those that do, less than half kills more than one person a decade. The only notable exception is the same idiot state that brought us George Bush.
the USA is closer to european union than to one country. A fact that is often forgotten.

Re:And yet...

[st0rmshad0w]

Actually, under the Taliban, you could get get executed for growing heroin poppies. After the Taliban got run off, heroin production skyrocketed.

Re:absurd

[Z00L00K]

Of all the strange "crimes" that human beings have legislated of nothing, "blasphemy" is the most amazing - with "obscenity" and "indecent exposure" fighting it out for the second and third place.

---- Robert A. Heinlein

Re:absurd

[WK2]

Don't forget "use" and "possession" crimes. They should be in the top 10.

AC said: "planning crimes *is* a crime"

If that were true, crime dramas would be dead in the water. So would real life law enforcement. And security companies. And pretty much every job that requires someone to predict or understand the behavior of criminals. Even if someone were to intend to commit a crime, they should not be punished unless they actually attempt to carry it out. Everyone should be given a chance, unless you thought Minority Report represented a good idea.