Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
That wonderful democratic government we've installed in Afghanistan has, in its magnanimity, reduced the sentence of a young journalist who dared to criticize the Quran's view of women from death to a mere 20 years in prison.
An appeals court sentenced a young Afghan journalist to 20 years in prison for blasphemy on Tuesday, overturning a death sentence ordered by a provincial court but raising further concerns of judicial propriety in the case.
Judicial propriety? They're worried about judicial propriety in a country that puts people to death for blasphemy? It isn't the judges that are the problem, it's the barbaric laws that are the problem. Here's more on that wonderful court system they have:
The court in Mazar-i-Sharif sentenced Mr. Kambakhsh to death in January, after a five-minute trial in which he was not allowed to offer a defense.The appeal was heard in a Kabul court before a panel of three judges and involved several hearings over a number of months.John Dempsey, an American lawyer observing the hearing in Kabul, said Mr. Kambakhsh was not treated fairly. "He was detained far longer than he should have been legally held," he said, according to The A.P. "The defense lawyer was not even allowed to meet the witnesses until a night before the trial."
I'm waiting for the religious right to declare this judge a judicial activist for not putting the guy to death.
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Ah so this was the purpose of that grand American plan called "Operation Enduring Freedom". Who says Americans can't do irony? -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | October 28, 2008 9:43 AM
Isn't it interesting that the US exerted considerable influence on the writing of the new constitution and laws of Iraq but didn't bother to insist that the new constitution and laws of Afghanistan conform to international standards of human rights?
Posted by: Bill Poser | October 28, 2008 2:08 PM
Bill - that's because Iraq was "the central front in the war on terror." (I fart in the general direction of that excuse!)
Posted by: Umlud | October 28, 2008 2:36 PM
Bill & Umlud:
"Iraq is the front in the war against terror
Might be because we invited 'em there, or
Perhaps there's some terrible clerical error
Maybe a faulty equation
Like nine-one-one equals U.S. invasion"
-- Roy Zimmerman, "Saddam Shame"
Posted by: Paul | October 29, 2008 7:24 PM