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Editor's jailing tests Afghan democracy
Rights activist's case shows hard-liners still wield influence
By Kim Barker
Chicago Tribune
Published November 26, 2005
KABUL, Afghanistan -- The prosecutors say Ali Mohaqeq Nasab deserves to die for what he did. Jailers shaved his head. He was pulled into court wearing handcuffs and leg shackles.
His crime? He is no killer, no
kidnapper, no rapist. In a case reminiscent of the strict Taliban era, Nasab has been sentenced to 2 years in prison for blasphemy, for going against Islam. And prosecutors are appealing.
"There should be a bigger
punishment for him," said Abdul Jamil, who is in charge of prosecuting attorneys in Kabul. "If he intends to keep to what he said, then he should be executed."
The case of Nasab, 47, a liberal Shiite
cleric who flouted conservative Islamic beliefs in his Women's Rights magazine, is at the crux of a quandary for the fledgling Afghan democracy: how to reconcile the constitutional guarantee of free speech and the protection of
Islam.
His jail sentence presents a problem for President Hamid Karzai, who is facing pressure from Western allies to pardon Nasab and pressure from powerful clerics to keep Nasab in jail. At the same time, a
conservative parliament has just been elected, one that is likely to resist any attempts to free Nasab.
Karzai's office has been largely silent. Officials from the presidential palace say Karzai will not interfere with
the court system but add that Nasab's case should have been handled by the media commission of the Ministry of Culture and Information. At a recent news conference, presidential spokesman Karim Rahimi said only that the office
hoped for "positive results," without specifying what those might be.
"No one can intervene" with the courts, Rahimi said. "This is a fact. We hope this issue is solved in a better way."
The minister of culture and information has objected to the prison sentence.
The media commission believes that Nasab did not commit blasphemy but that he should be removed as editor to placate any religious
concerns.
Nasab disagrees.
The outspoken editor is not exactly helping his own cause. Although he appeared meek in court, since then he has repeated the kinds of statements that got him into trouble in the first
place, even going on television from jail to challenge other clerics to a debate.
Nasab says the clerics who complain about him are illiterate. He says his prosecutors cannot even understand his writings, in Arabic and
Farsi, a language closely related to Afghan Dari.
And Nasab challenges conservative interpretations of the Koran, of Islamic law and of the Prophet Muhammad. He says Muslims who commit adultery do not deserve to be
stoned to death. He says Muslims who convert to another religion do not deserve to be killed. He says a woman's testimony is equal to that of a man, not half as much.
`I am not a criminal'
In jail, Nasab was unrepentant.
"I am not a criminal," he said, fingering yellow prayer beads. "Why should I be in jail? Every day that I stay in this prison, that's illegal."
Nasab started
Women's Rights magazine shortly after coming home to Afghanistan two years ago from Iran, where he also faced problems for his liberal views. His magazine is a curious mix of Western pop and women's stories, including cover
photographs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of celebrity Alicia Silverstone and of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, which were destroyed by the Taliban.
Articles tackle why women set themselves on fire in Afghanistan and say that
the Koran guarantees equal rights between men and women.
Nasab is not alone in his views; in Iran, a small group of liberal Shiite scholars have long challenged conservative Islamic thinking. But in Afghanistan, he is
an oddity. Most of the Taliban fled four years ago, but their mind-set remains. Conservative clerics run the Afghan courts; soon they will join parliament.
Muhammad Aref Rahmani, a member of the national Shiite Council
of Ulema, or Islamic scholars, said he felt fear reading through the first seven issues of Women's Rights magazine. He worried that Nasab opened the door to Muslims converting to Christianity and Judaism, which would move
Afghanistan toward secularism, liberalism and infidelity.
"Sometimes the whole religion and the rules of the religion were attacked,"
Rahmani said. "For instance, he says one woman should be equal to
one man, as a witness in a case, which is completely against our religion."
After Nasab was arrested Oct. 1 and sentenced three weeks later, local media defended him, running an open letter signed by Afghan
intellectuals.
International news media groups complained. Fahim Dashty, the editor of The Kabul Weekly, ran a free ad that took up one-fourth of the front page:
"President Karzai, show us that you are in power and
not the Taliban, again ... Free Mohaqeq Nasab!"
But since then, outrage seems to have faded. It is as if no one wants to align too much with the jailed editor. Even Dashty squirms when talking about what Nasab
wrote.
"He's talking about very, very, very important religious issues," Dashty said. "But for me, it seems too quick, too strong and too hard, which is, of course, dangerous."
A tipping point?
Nasab's case is only the most extreme example of media intimidation, according to the Afghan Independent Journalists Association. Since forming in June, the association has handled 15 cases, including
that of two college students in the western city of Herat accused of blasphemy and called "infidels" in posters hung around town, said Rahimullah Samander, the head of the journalists association.
But Nasab's
case could be the tipping point in the new Afghanistan, a predictor of future jail sentences and how free speech really is. It could have a chilling effect on the Afghan media.
"It is a sign," said Hazrat
Wahriz, who helped found the Union of Freedom of _Expression in Afghanistan. "In every mosque, they are agitating against anything having to do with democracy and anything to do with freedom of _expression. Every Friday in
every mosque, all over Afghanistan."
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