Appeal for Afghan Convicted of Saying Men & Women are Equal...

Appeal by brother of Afghan journalist convicted of saying that men and women are equal

MILAN – Yaqub Perwiz Kambakhsh, 28, is in Italy to draw attention to the plight of his brother, an Afghan journalist sentenced to 20 years in prison for asserting that women have the same rights as men. “Italy has a moral duty to Afghanistan. Since the 2001 war, Italy has been committed to financing the reconstruction of the Afghan judicial system, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. Why does it do nothing to halt this injustice inflicted on Sayed?” he demands.

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It all began in 2007, when the 23-year-old Sayed, a journalist working for Mazar El Sharif-based media in the north of the country, claimed provocatively on his blog that “extremist mullahs” were misinterpreting the Koran. He wondered why, if Islam allows a man to take four wives, a woman can’t have four husbands. Sayed is an obscure provincial reporter but his words caused deep shock in an Afghanistan in the throes of religious restoration and a wholesale return to tradition. Sayed was arrested, charged with blasphemy and on 27 October 2007 he was sentenced to death. At that point, international humanitarian associations stepped in and media around the world picked up the story. The Afghan president Hamid Karzai was even asked to intervene. But the president proved reluctant. “He can’t speak out personally on behalf of the journalist. Karzai is struggling and losing consensus. He’s afraid he won’t win the presidential elections scheduled for late August 2009. He needs the Pashtun vote and the support of religious circles. He might say something in defence of Sayed, but only after the election”, explain well-informed observers. The compromise was to commute the death penalty to imprisonment, which was done on 1 October 2008, when Sayed’s sentence was converted to 20 years in jail.

“But now everything is on hold and Sayed is suffering. We his family, colleagues, friends and lawyers fear that he could die in jail, perhaps poisoned. It wouldn’t be the first time”, notes Yaqub. Read the complete story here

This is everyday Islam. We have the same thing in Maldives with "Islamic Scholars" pronouncing that women cannot rule a country or hold a position above a man. Islamic Scholars maintain that a minimum age of marriage for girls is Un-Islamic. Some men are making prisoners their daughters and depriving daughters of education.

Then we have those types who say that this is not TRUE ISLAM and that these people are misinterpreting the Quran and Hadith. They claim that these things have nothing to do with Islam.
I don't think so. These men are trying to follow the instructions of Mohammed (PBUH) uswa hasana, al-Insān al-Kāmil (الإنسان الكامل,) The Perfect Man.

Read the following Quran verses and Hadiths and then tell me if they have anything to do with this despicable and inhuman behavior towards women?

Volume 7, Book 62, Number 33:
Narrated Usama bin Zaid:
The Prophet said, "After me I have not left any affliction more harmful to men than women."

The Qur'an:

Sura (4:11) - (Inheritance) "The male shall have the equal of the portion of two females" (see also Sura (4:176)).

Sura (2:282) - (Court testimony) "And call to witness, from among your men, two witnesses. And if two men be not found then a man and two women."

Sura (2:228) - "and the men are a degree above them [women]"

Sura (5:6) - "And if ye are unclean, purify yourselves. And if ye are sick or on a journey, or one of you cometh from the closet, or ye have had contact with women, and ye find not water, then go to clean, high ground and rub your faces and your hands with some of it" Men are to rub dirt on their hands if there is no water to purify them following casual contact with a woman (such as shaking hands).

Sura (24:31) - Women are to lower their gaze around men, so they do not look them in the eye.

Sura (2:223) - "Your wives are as a tilth unto you; so approach your tilth when or how ye will..." A man has dominion over his wives' bodies as he does his land. This verse is overtly sexual. There is some dispute as to whether it is referring to the practice of anal intercourse, which it has been used historically to justify. If this is what Muhammad meant, however, then it would appear to contradict what he said in Muslim (8:3365).

Bukhari (6:301) - "[Muhammad] said, 'Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?' They replied in the affirmative. He said, 'This is the deficiency in her intelligence.'"

Bukhari (6:301) - continued - "[Muhammad said] 'Isn't it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?' The women replied in the affirmative. He said, 'This is the deficiency in her religion.'"

Bukhari (62:81) - "The Prophet said: "'The stipulations most entitled to be abided by are those with which you are given the right to enjoy the (women's) private parts (i.e. the stipulations of the marriage contract).'" In other words, the most important thing that a woman brings to a marriage is between her legs.