(CNSNews.com) - The death sentence given to a young Afghan man convicted of insulting Islam is focusing attention once again on the dominant -- and controversial -- role the religion enjoys in the country's constitution and laws.

After a buildup of international concern about the case, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said this week she would take it up with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

"It won't surprise you that we are not supportive of everything that comes up through the judicial system in Afghanistan," Rice told reporters en route to London where she held talks on Afghanistan.

"I do think that the Afghans understand that there are some international norms that need to be respected," she added.

Earlier, an independent commission that advises the administration and Congress on religious freedom urged Rice to intervene in the case of Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh, a the 23-year-old journalist and student.

"Afghanistan's unique circumstances present the United States with a special responsibility to act in the face of such travesties of justice," U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom chairman Michael Cromartie said in a letter to the Secretary of State.

Kambakhsh was accused of distributing to fellow students an article found on the Internet questioning the fact that Muslim men are allowed to have multiple wives, while women may have only one husband.

A court in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif handed him a death in a closed trial on January 22 after convicting him of blasphemy.

Afghanistan's upper legislature issued a statement of support for the sentence, although it was later withdrawn.

Karzai's official spokesman told a press conference Tuesday the president was concerned about the case but would not get involved until the courts had made a final decision. Kambakhsh, who has already been in custody for more than three months, is appealing the sentence.

Even if Karzai does intervene, few expect him to risk angering hard-line clerics by tackling the deeper issue of the pre-eminent place given to Islam in Afghanistan's new constitution, introduced in 2004.

This is the third time since U.S.-led forces toppled the fundamentalist Taliban regime in late 2001 that the Afghan judiciary or clerics are known to have sought to execute someone for blasphemy.

Like this one, both of the previous cases arose because although the constitution upholds freedom of religion and freedom of expression, it also carries a clause declaring that "no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam."

Both earlier cases were resolved after an outcry -- but without resolution of the underlying problem.

In 2006, Christian convert Abdul Rahman, sentenced to death for apostasy, was freed and allowed to seek asylum abroad after international pressure led by Western governments with troops helping to secure the Karzai administration.

The previous year, journalist Ali Mohaqiq Nasab was sentenced to two years' imprisonment after reprinting articles by an Iranian scholar criticizing the stoning of Muslims who change religion and the use of corporal punishment for adultery and theft.

Leading clerics called for the sentence to be changed to the death penalty, but the Kabul High Court reduced the jail term, allowing him to go free -- although he was required to issue a formal apology and his conviction was not quashed. He left the country too.

Cromartie in the letter to Rice noted that neither the Rahman nor the Mohaqiq Nasab case "was settled in a manner demonstrating that human rights are adequately protected in Afghanistan."

He noted the commission's previously-expressed concerns about "the absence of adequate guarantees of freedom of religion and expression in the Afghan constitution, which can lead to unjust criminal accusations of apostasy and blasphemy."

'Other values'

Critics say the "sacred religion of Islam" clause leaves no room for differing interpretations within Islam.

When the constitution was being drafted, a panel of legal experts brought together by the Rand Corporation to discuss it suggested that the drafters use the term "the basic principles of Islam" rather than simply "Islam."

They argued in a 2003 report that "insertion of the term 'principles' contributes to the idea that application of Islamic teachings cannot be mechanistic, based on a frozen interpretation of Islamic law."

The experts also noted that some Islamic countries were applying "extreme applications of Islamic law," and said using the phrase "principles of Islam" in the Afghan constitution "avoids possible misunderstanding."

They also suggested that the document should make reference to "other values embodied in this constitution." (The country's previous constitution, passed in 1964, said, "there shall be no law repugnant to the basic principles of the sacred religion of Islam and the other values embodies in this constitution.")

The recommendations were not taken up, however, in the final draft instituted in early 2004.

The Kambakhsh case has drawn strong criticism from international watchdog groups.

Reporters Without Borders said the authorities should "find a way to provide better protection for freedom of expression, one that will be effective even when subjects as sensitive as religion are involved."

Human Rights Watch said the case also reflected the lack of progress in reforming the Afghanistan judiciary, which it said included "deeply entrenched traditionalists ... many of whom have close links to notorious warlords."

In a 2006 "compact" with the international community, Karzai undertook to prioritize reform of the judiciary, rehabilitating its infrastructure and ensuring "equal, fair and transparent access to justice for all based upon written codes with fair trials and enforceable verdicts."

U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban from power in Kabul after it refused to surrender al-Qaeda terrorists following the 9/11 terror attacks.

Amid a continuing violent campaign by the Islamists, the U.S. remains the leading backer of the Karzai government, deploying some 12,000 troops in the country in addition to contributing one-third of the 42,000-strong NATO mission there.

See Also:
Trial of Afghan Convert Emphasizes Need for Judicial Reform (March 22, 2006)

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