A call for a Cease-fire

The internment will begin on Monday with Royal family members and then on Tuesday the first President Daoud Khan in a State funeral, the following has come from Prince Nadir tonight, that was announced in the Afghan media today.

We, the surviving family members of Shaied Mohammad Daoud Khan, the first president of Afghanistan, call for an immediate weeklong ceasefire throughout our beloved country to remember and honor the memory of eighteen members of our family and the million and a half Afghan martyrs who have since lost their lives for the protection of the holy religion of Islam and for the freedom of Afghanistan. We pray for their souls.

We believe that the sacrifices made by all Afghans and their families should be recognized, honored and respected. We call upon all Afghans and the international community to show goodwill and to commit to our request.

Let us put our guns to the side, honor those who have suffered the loss of their loved ones during this painful thirty year struggle, and pray for the souls of our brothers and sisters who have made us proud to be Afghan.

Shaied Daoud Khan and countless other brave Afghans gave up their precious lives for a better future for the next generation.. As we pray for their souls, let us stand together to fulfill their hopes and dreams of a peaceful, united and prosperous Afghanistan.

On the eve of this new year (1388), as we mourn and release our family and all our martyrs back into the ground of this soil from which they’ve come and to which they return, let us bury with them the seeds of an intention; that this cease-fire be turned into the flowering of a lasting peace. In so doing, may they rest at peace and bring peace upon us all, at last.
A statement from the families of Shaied Daoud Khan and his brother Shaied Naim Khan.

Sentenced for 20 years for downloading a human rights article

A 23 year old reporter for a local newspaper (Jahaan Naw) and a journalism student from Afghanistan has been sentenced for 20 years in prison for allegedly circulating an article about women's rights.

Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, had hoped that Afghanistan's top judges would quash his conviction for lack of evidence, or because he was tried in secret and convicted without a defense lawyer, Afzal Nooristani, to submit so much as a word in his defense.

Since he was arrested, Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has spent almost 18 months in prison. During this time, he was sentenced to death in 5 minutes by Enayatullah Baleegh for allegedly downloading and distributing a report criticizing the treatment of women under Islamic Law. The motion was later withdrawn due to international pressure, giving Kambaksh the right to appeal the sentence.

That appeal however was quashed and Mr Kambaksh's case has been passed to the prosecutors' office for "execution of the sentence", which means he could be moved to Kabul's notorious Pul-e Charkhi prison, or north to Mazar-i-Sharif, where he was first found guilty. Mr Kambaksh’s lawer has even been threatened with murder.

Mr Kambaksh's case has highlighted the tension between the voices of conservative Islam in Afghanistan and the liberal international backers of President Karzai. Mr Karzai is left in a difficult position - not wanting to appear to bow to international pressure in what is a strongly Islamic country. Mr Kambaksh's best hope is now a presidential pardon, which will force president Hamid Karzai to choose between fundamentalists in his government and the rule of law.