We released this statement today after receiving confirmation from Yaqub Ibrahimi that his brother, Afghan journalism student Parwez Kambakhsh, who was convicted of blasphemy and originally sentenced to death, has been released from a 20-year prison sentence…
“The combination of widespread public international advocacy and the pressure brought by genuinely concerned senior diplomatic officials was effective in winning Kambakhsh’s release,” said Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Kambakhsh’s release is a bright spot in Afghanistan’s increasingly repressive media atmosphere, where journalists are targeted from all sides—by combatants in the field, warlords, drug mafias, criminal gangs, as well as government officials with their own anti-media agenda.”