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Pardon Pervez Kambakhsh

I am sure most of you know about the case of the young student journalist Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, sentenced to death by courts in Afghanistan for distributing literature supporting women's rights (which amounts to "blasphemy"). The sentence was reduced to 20 years.

The Independent is fighting Pevez's corner.

There is a facebook group to join here.

Will the President of Afghanistan issue a pardon?

Comments

The Atheist Missionary said…
If you want to get an insightful (though politically incorrect) commentary on what we are doing in Afghanistan, check out Dan Carlin's podcast Common Sense (free on iTunes) - show 147 entitled A Little Less Evil. Carlin is brilliant, entertaining and his Hardcore History podcast (also available on iTunes) is nothing short of addictive.
March 14, 2009 at 6:22 PM
Mr. Hamtastic said…
I want to know what a relativist would say about this...
March 15, 2009 at 3:07 AM
Unknown said…
Sometimes it's really hard for me to accept that people can so completely abandon all reason like this.

They're punishing this kid out of threatening and challenging baseless, dogmatic bullshit.
March 16, 2009 at 1:44 AM
anticant said…
People who have been indoctrinated from childhood with religious twaddle - Muslim, Jewish, Christian, or any other - have no understanding of what reason is. That is why they are such a menace to world peace and prosperity.
March 16, 2009 at 7:52 AM
Mr. Hamtastic said…
no anticant. It's not just those indoctrinated with "religious twaddle". Anyone with a closed mind is a threat. Or would you say that Stalin's purges were justified because they were not based in religion?

I wonder-people have asked me recently if we are doing the wrong thing in westernizing tribes in Africa... Is this not perhaps the same thing? How can we say that they have done something "wrong" when to them we are the "wrong" ones?

Was this person unaware of the local laws and customs before he began his crusade? Did he not recognize the danger? If he did, is he unprepared to suffer the consequences he knew would come?

If a man began handing out literature in your town about the benefits of pedophilia, would you support him in this? How about if he was giving it to children? With pictures? What is the difference here?

I suggest that reason itself is subjective, and thus you have no justification for your claim.
March 16, 2009 at 7:03 PM
anticant said…
OK Mr H, so reasoning is a Western-style method of thinking with its own formal rules [induction, logic etc.] which is not universally accepted by other cultures and to that extent is subjective.

So what? Does that make it any less valid and useful in solving problems and interpreting the nature of reality?

"Anyone with a closed mind is a threat". Agreed. Fanatical belief in any doctrine, whether religious or political - such as the Stalinist faux-Marxism which excused the purges by asserting that the end justifies the means - is religious twaddle in the sense that I was using the term.

'How can we say that they have done something "wrong" when to them we are the "wrong" ones?'

If you are going to indulge in value-free relativism of this type, there is really no point in pursuing a discussion with you.
March 16, 2009 at 10:08 PM
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