The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is deeply worried over a Kabul Appeal Court’s verdict upholding a 20-year prison sentence on Ghous Zelmay, a former journalist and spokesman for Afghanistan’s Attorney-General, on charges of wrongly interpreting religious scripture.
Zelmay was arrested in November 2007, shortly after he published a translation of the Holy Qur’an in Dari, one of Afghanistan’s two official languages. The translation was published without the original Arabic script accompanying it, and was deemed to have several inaccuracies. Criticism by conservative religious leaders initially sparked a call for Zelmay’s prosecution.
In September 2008, Zelmay was sentenced by a trial court to a 20-year prison term.
Mullah Qari Mushtaq Ahmad, a religious scholar who certified the Dari translation as accurate, was also convicted with Zelmay.
According to the Afghan Independent Journalists’ Association (AIJA), an IFJ affiliate, Kabul’s Appeals Court upheld the sentence and conviction on February 15 after an open hearing.
Zelmay protested the verdict in open court, declaring himself a devout person interested solely in making the scripture accessible to the many people in Afghanistan who read and speak only the Dari language.
The IFJ joins the AIJA in calling for the intervention of Afghanistan’s Chief Justice, Abdul Salam Azeemi, and President Hamid Karzai in this case.
“The harsh sentence against Zelmay marks a tragedy for the rights of journalists in a country where freedom of expression is constitutionally enshrined,” IFJ Asia-Pacific Director Jacqueline Park said.
“A lenient view should be taken of his case since Zelmay and his collaborators were seeking to serve a public cause.”
Zelmay was arrested shortly after the arrest of Sayed Parvez Kambakhsh, 24, in October 2007 on accusations of insolence to Islam.
Kambakhsh, who studied journalism and worked as a reporter for the daily newspaper Janan-e-Naw inthe northern city of Mazhar-e-Sharif, is currently serving a 20-year jail sentence. In January 2008, a closed hearing of the Balkh primary court sentenced Kambakhsh to death. The death sentence was overturned on appeal in October 2008.
For further information contact IFJ Asia-Pacific on +612 9333 0919
The IFJ represents over 600,000 journalists in 120 countries