Afghanistan and freedom of expression
“On the morning of Oct. 27, 2007, Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh got the call that changed his life,” starts a Globe and Mail interview
with the journalism student in Afghanistan whose death sentence was
commuted for a 20-year sentence instead. His “crime,” the Globe notes,
“would be nothing more than a typical classroom debate for a journalism
student in the West.”…
“On the morning of Oct. 27, 2007, Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh got the call that changed his life,” starts a Globe and Mail interview with the journalism student in Afghanistan whose death sentence was commuted for a 20-year sentence instead. His “crime,” the Globe notes, “would be nothing more than a typical classroom debate for a journalism student in the West.”
Writer Jessica Leeder quotes Kambakhsh’s brother on the underlying politics and hidden motives in the case, and a chilling charge: ““It seems that the Afghan government has two faces, one for foreign countries and one for the people of Afghanistan,” he said. “The real face is very dark and extremist.”” He called on foreign nations investing in Afghanistan’s redevelopment to press President Hamid Karzai to intervene.
Where is Canada?
Defending freedom of expression is the one consistent area where, I argue, journalists have to take sides. Again, as asked in a previous Townhall post, here, what, exactly, are Canadian, and other NATO soldiers, dying in Afghanistan to defend?
