Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide

by Paul Marshall

  Coalition Forces

  There have been controversies concerning allegations of blasphemy against coalition troops. In March 2009, students from Nangarhar University demonstrated against “an alleged desecration of the holy Qur’an” and blocked the Kabul-Jalalabad highway. The demonstrators believed that Polish soldiers had insulted the Qur’an while searching mosques in Ghazni province. They dispersed peacefully after a parliamentary resolution asking the international community to “leave Afghanistan and stop insulting Islam” was passed.35 On October 25, 2009, violent protests rocked Kabul as students from Kabul University burned an effigy of President Obama after allegations that U.S. troops had desecrated a Qur’an. United States officials denied the accusation and accused the Taliban of spreading false rumors.36 In January 2010, further protests took place in the Garmsir district, when International Security Assistance Forces, including Muslim soldiers, were accused of desecrating a Qur’an. Afghan police claim that a demonstrator killed a guard, which prompted the police to open fire on the crowd of 1,000, killing at least six people. NATO maintains that no Qur’ans were desecrated.37

  In May 2009, a controversy arose when a year-old video surfaced showing U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan distributing Bibles in Pashto and Dari. There was an immediate outcry that the troops were “proselytizing,” a violation of the U.S. military code of conduct. The soldiers denied it and claimed that the Bibles had been sent, unsolicited, by a church in the United States. The incident led to a major uproar among many Afghans and has raised awareness of the dangers to possible “apostates” in the country. However, the possession of local-language Bibles does not demonstrate that troops were attempting to convert Afghans. Indeed, the implication that it is an offense for an Afghan to be given, or to have, a Bible is a rather draconian view. Still, U.S. Colonel Greg Julian insists that the video footage was taken out of context and that the Bibles were never distributed. The U.S. military was quick to confiscate and destroy the Bibles: “The decision was made that it was a ‘force protection’ measure to throw them away.”38

  At least one Afghan, “Ahmed,” a recent convert to Christianity, has met secretly with U.S. troops at the Kabul Afghanistan International Airport in order to join Christians with whom he can pray. Ahmed first learned of Christian teachings when his English instructor offered him an English-Dari Bible. Ahmed hid the Bible under his mattress, where his mother later found it. Thrown out of his parents’ home and forced to marry a relative in hopes that the marriage might renew his Muslim faith, he prays during his weekly services “for a day to come in which there is freedom of religion in Afghanistan and each and every person can practice what they believe.”39

  Shias

  Shias in Afghanistan may also suffer discrimination and persecution from the majority Sunnis. Above we described how the magazine Sobh-e-Omid in 2007 ran into trouble because of its coverage of an Iranian-sponsored, and Shia, book exhibition. In May 2009, following complaints from a local governor that certain Shia texts insulted Sunnis, the Afghan government dumped over 1,000 of the texts into a river. The government’s action appeared to be an attempt to smooth over tensions between Sunnis and Shias but had the opposite effect. Many Shia leaders called the act a “humiliation for all Shiites” and insisted that a joint commission of Sunnis and Shias should have first reviewed the complaints. Deputy Culture Minister Aleem Tanwir claimed that the books’ incorrect statements about Muhammad were offensive to Sunnis and therefore “dangerous to the unity of Afghanistan.” However, merchants who ordered the books insist that there was nothing offensive about them and that the destruction was rooted in anti-Shia prejudice.40

  Reformers

  Blasphemy and apostasy allegations, by the government or violent groups, are also used to silence those who hold to reforming versions of Islam. Many of the accused are journalists, but one of the earliest targets was Sima Samar, a cabinet member in Afghanistan’s 2002 interim government.

  Sima Samar

  On June 10, 2002, a letter to the Mujahed newspaper—the party organ of Burhanuddin Rabbani’s Jamiat e-Islami party—accused Sima Samar, minister for Women’s Affairs in the Afghan interim government, of telling a Canadian journalist, “I don’t believe in sharia.” The letter, labeling her “Afghanistan’s Salman Rushdie,” pronounced, “Our people know what punishment awaits anyone who insults Islam and the Prophet,” and called on the authorities to investigate “and prepare the appropriate punishment.” Mujahed also printed a front-page article condemning Samar.41 She denied the charge and said, as a Muslim, “I have built hospitals and schools with 25,000 students. This is my jihad and it is what I supported and have done since the Russians were here. I believe in human rights and in women’s rights and in peaceful speaking.”

  Samar was also deputy chairwoman of a loya jirga, a grand council of Afghan leaders, held at the same time as the controversy and was denounced there for her advocacy of the rights of women and rejection of the burka and other supposedly Islamic restrictions. She was also stigmatized as a member of the minority, mainly Shia, Hazara ethnic group.42 She also received threats of violence, including some from men dressed as police officers. Chief Justice Shinwari declared that “the Supreme Court of Afghanistan thinks she cannot hold official jobs any more,” and the court allegedly summoned her to face blasphemy charges, but, according to one court source, the case was dropped after “she denied the accusations and said she was a Muslim woman.”

  However, the attacks led to Samar’s resigning her ministerial positions and taking a lower- profile job as leader of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.43 Despite his earlier statements, Shinwari insisted that the court was reassured of Samar’s Islamic faith and had not barred her from the Women’s Affairs post, while President Karzai maintained that he had permitted Samar to choose freely between either of the positions.44

  Sayeed Mir Hussein Mahdavi and Ali Reza Payam Sistany

  On June 17, 2003, Shinwari ordered the arrest of newspaper editors Sayeed Mir Hussein Mahdavi and Ali Reza Payam Sistany, an Iranian national, for allegedly insulting Islam. Mahdavi was chief editor, and Sistany was deputy editor of the newspaper Aftab, which had published two articles questioning interpretations of religious texts and the role of Islam in Afghan politics. Afghan intelligence agents also confiscated copies of Aftab from shops, temporarily closed the paper’s office, and forbade its staff from publishing in the future.45 One article, “Holy Fascism,” published on June 11, criticized warlords for committing crimes in the name of Islam and raised questions about conservative religious leaders. It also asked, “If Islam is the last and most complete of the revealed religions, why do the Muslim countries lag behind the modern world?” and argued that the new Afghan constitution should accept an interpretation of Islam suitable for modernity.46

  Mahdavi described his work as “a sort of Luther-like challenge to Islamic fundamentalism,” suggesting that “the general history of Islam in Afghanistan had been almost entirely accompanied by violence and repression,” and he asked “why ordinary Muslims were bound by clerics’ interpretations of Islamic law.” The other article carried the title “Religion + Government = Tyranny.”47

  On June 25, Mahdavi and Sistany were released pending legal proceedings, and the paper was granted permission to resume operations. However, protests in Kabul, claiming that they had “humiliated Islam” and demanding their execution, drove them into hiding. In early August, word leaked to the press that, on July 17, the Supreme Court agency responsible for issuing fatwas had called for a death sentence against the two journalists. Mahdavi then fled with his family to Islamabad, where he remained in hiding until October, when he received asylum in Canada. Sistany also received asylum outside of the country.48

  Ali Mohaqeq Nasab

  In October 2005, Ali Mohaqeq Nasab was arrested for publishing “un-Islamic” articles. A liberal Shia cleric, he had spent many years in exile, including in Iran, where he ran into trouble by challenging the government’s
religious legitimacy. He returned to Afghanistan in 2004, hoping to take advantage of greater political openness, and became the editor of the magazine Women’s Rights (Haqooq-i-Zan), described by Kim Barker of the Chicago Tribune as “a curious mix of Western pop and women’s issues.” It questioned strict sharia practices, including temporal punishments for apostasy, amputations for thieves, lashing or stoning for adultery, and giving a man’s court testimony twice the value of a woman’s testimony. Nasab contended, as a general principle, that the precepts of sharia must be open to human questioning and interpretation.49

  In September, part of the Afghan Supreme Court apparatus concluded that Nasab’s writings contradicted the Qur’an and cited a hadith, stating, “Whoever changes or denies any verses of the Holy Qur’an will legitimize their own execution.”50 President Karzai’s religious advisor, Mohaiuddin Baluch, also thought the articles contradicted the Qur’an and referred the matter to the Attorney General. On October 1, when Nasab went to the authorities seeking protection from followers of a cleric who had branded him an infidel, he was instead himself arrested. Nasab was put on trial before a public security court, where, according to the head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, it was “very obvious” that “without respect to rules and procedures, they were going to punish him.”51 On October 22, he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for blasphemy. The presiding judge, Ansarullah Malawizada, admitted: “[T]he Ulama Council sent us a letter saying that he should be punished so I sentenced him to two years’ jail.” The Ministry of Information and Culture’s media commission, which President Karzai’s office believed had jurisdiction over the case, maintained that Nasab was innocent but was unable to void the court’s decision.

  In Nasab’s view, the sentence illustrated the failure of Afghan democracy: “I made one mistake. When I heard there was democracy in my country, I came back…I didn’t know that still there was no democracy…and still there is the culture of the Taliban regime.” He also contends that there were political and discriminatory motives behind his conviction, since he is a Hazara and therefore part of a group that has historically been marginalized. He has continued to promote his ideas and even gave a televised statement from prison seeking a debate with his clerical opponents. Chief Prosecutor Zmarai Amiri warned that “there are some people who speak irresponsibly through television and newspapers, without knowing anything about Islamic law, the Afghan constitution or Afghan law. We have decided to arrest and interrogate these people.” One person who had publicly advocated for Nasab’s release was held briefly for questioning in November 2005.52

  Both prosecution and defense challenged the sentence. The former pressed for the death penalty, and the latter sought an acquittal. The Attorney General’s office proclaimed, “According to sharia law, if he does not repent and if he does not return to his religion, he should be executed.” The head of the public security court, Alhaj Ansarullah Maulavi Zada, maintained that the trial had been a lost opportunity for Nasab to repent: “We listened to him a lot. We gave him a three-day trial. But he couldn’t answer the court. He was not showing any kind of remorse. He still said changing your religion is forbidden but is not a crime.” Nasab responded, “I haven’t committed any sin to repent for. If I’m not a sinner, then why should I repent?…I’m a Muslim, and what I mentioned in my magazine doesn’t have a single conflict with my religion. I’m more of a religious person than they are.”53

  On December 21, 2005, Judge Muzafarudeen Tajali of the Kabul High Court reduced Nasab’s sentence to six months and suspended parts of the new, shortened sentence; his having been in prison since October 1 allowed for his release the following day.54 The court only agreed to shorten the sentence after Nasab apologized for the articles. However, in a subsequent interview with Radio Free Europe, he affirmed that, “in my view, apostasy is not a crime.” Due to continuing threats, he fled to Iran.55

  Sayed Pervez Kambakhsh

  On October 27, 2007, Sayed Pervez Kambakhsh, a twenty-three-year-old journalism student, was arrested over an article that criticized the position of women in Muslim society. He had distributed the article, written by an Iranian then living in Germany, to his classmates at Balkh University after discovering it online. The article, “The Koranic Verses That Discriminate Against Women,” questioned the right of men in Muslim societies to have several wives while women are permitted only one husband. Kambakhsh said that he hoped to start a discussion on women’s rights in Afghanistan.

  Some students who saw the article complained to the authorities, and Kambakhsh was accused of being its author, which he denies. He was brought to face charges of blasphemy in the highly conservative city of Mazar-e-Sharif.56 Prosecutors argued that the piece mocked Islam and the Qu’ran by suggesting that Muhammad ignored women’s rights. In December 2007, the case was referred to the Ulema Council, which called for him to be executed, rather than to the media commission, the appropriate body authorized under Afghan law.57

  Kambakhsh’s older brother, Sayed Yaqup Ibrahimi, says that the trial, which took place in a closed session with three judges, lasted for five minutes. Some reporters’ groups contend that the trial was really a ploy intended to intimidate Ibrahimi, who had recently accused an Afghan politician of ties to violent crime. Kambakhsh says he was not permitted to have an attorney or to speak in his own defense. The regional Attorney General responded that the defendant chose to forgo an attorney.

  Kambakhsh’s accusers claim that he confessed to writing parts of the article—including the part that said, “The prophet Mohammad wrote verses of the Holy Qur’an just for his own benefit.” Kambakhsh maintains that he made this admission only under torture. On January 22, 2008, he was convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to death under Article 130 of the constitution, which states that when there is no national law, the court should decide in accordance with the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence.58 After the sentencing, some Afghan journalists were warned by a deputy Attorney General of Balkh province that if they took up Kambakhsh’s case, they also would face arrest.59 The Afghan Senate initially expressed its support for the death sentence but, in the face of international protest, said that this approval had been a “technical mistake.” It affirmed that the defendant should have the right to counsel but also that “[t]he nature of the sentence, considering the judiciary’s independence, would be up to the court itself.”60

  Kambakhsh sought to appeal the verdict but, due to fear of retribution by opponents, initially had difficulty finding a lawyer. His case then went before the Kabul appeals court. In a June 15, 2008, preliminary hearing, the presiding judge, Abdul Salam Qazizada, spoke as if already convinced of Kambakhsh’s guilt, demanding of the defendant, “Just tell me why you did these things…It is clear that this text belongs to you.” He went on to imply that some of the classmates should also have been arrested.61

  On October 21, 2008, the appeals court heard the charges, and the prosecution’s case nearly fell apart. A fellow student, Hamed, who had earlier testified that Kambakhsh had given him the offending article, replied no when asked if he stood by his statement, and he added that he had been forced to make the statement after a literature professor escorted him to the university director’s office, and two strangers, whom he believed were from the National Security Directorate, ordered him to write a statement against Kambakhsh. Hamed testified, “I wrote what they told me. I was scared. They threatened my mother, my father…” When prosecutor Akhmad Khan Ayar hinted that he could be tried for perjury, Hamed replied, “I accept responsibility.” During the trial, several professors from Balkh University testified that they had complained because Kambakhsh asked provocative questions in class. Shahabuddin Saqeb, a teacher in the sharia faculty, said, “He asked questions that made it seem that he was not sure of his beliefs.” Despite these flaws in the prosecution’s case, the appeals court, while overturning the death penalty, sentenced Kambakhsh to twenty years in prison.62 On September 7, 2009, he was released after
serving twenty months when President Karzai granted him amnesty.63

  Ghaus Zalmai

  In November 2007, Ghaus Zalmai, formerly an outspoken journalist, who was then a spokesman for the Attorney General, was arrested for publishing a Dari translation of the Qur’an. The translation had been made by U.S. resident Qudratullah Bakhtiarinejad and edited by Mullah Qari Mushtqaq; 6,000 copies were printed and ready for distribution. The text, titled “A Fluent Translation of the Holy Koran,” differed from earlier translations in that it was entirely in Dari, that each verse was not accompanied by its Arabic equivalent, and that it was a literal line-by-line translation.

  This publication led to protests and an emergency debate in Parliament that denounced the book and called for its confiscation. Niamatullah Shahrani, Minister for the Hajj and Religious Affairs, warned, “This book…is a conspiracy by international Zionism and other groups which is designed to eliminate Islam.” Chief Justice Abdul Salam Azimi said, “This is a plot against the religion of Islam.” Zalmai’s employer, the Attorney General, issued a warrant for Zalmai’s arrest, and police captured him at the Pakistani border as he attempted to flee. The translation’s editor, Mullah Mushtaq Ahmad, went into hiding. A Supreme Court representative said that Zalmai’s punishment would depend on exactly how problematic an investigatory commission found the translation to be.”64