February 2008
11 posts
1 tag
Afghans can crush opium in six years if Nato helps →
The Scotsman
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
AFGHANISTAN could be poppy-free in just six years, the government’s drugs czar claimed yesterday – but only if Nato risks more soldiers’ lives to support eradication efforts.
Poppy cultivation has more than doubled since 2001, when Britain took responsibility for trying to eradicate the crop.
But so far Nato has refused to commit ground...
1 tag
Civil war fear as Afghans ponder arrest of warlord →
The Scotsman
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
AN INVESTIGATION into claims a notorious Afghan warlord led a drunken raid on his neighbour’s home, kidnapped its occupants and slapped the owner’s wife are threatening to split the country’s key power brokers along ethnic lines and plunge its only peaceful region into civil war.
The whisky-swilling warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum...
2 tags
Pervez appeal 'in open court' →
The Independent
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
Pervez Kambaksh, the Afghan student sentenced to death for downloading an article about women’s rights, has been promised the chance to appeal against his death penalty in an open court, well away from the plotters and extremists accused of hijacking the original proceedings.
Afghanistan’s Supreme Court said his appeal would be held in...
2 tags
Friend of Pervez flees extremists in Afghanistan →
The Independent
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
A journalist friend of the condemned student Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has fled Afghanistan fearing for his life, after an extremist mob threatened to kill him.
Yahya Najafizada escaped halfway across the world when his name appeared on a blacklist of alleged heretics. The list was compiled by hardline sharia students in Mazar-e Sharif, just days after...
3 tags
Afghan reporters: Between a rock and a hard place →
The Independent
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
Afghan journalists live and breathe their country’s dream of a better future. But they also live under the shadow of its violent past.
In a country where the rule of law is fragile at best and where violence speaks volumes, the reporting of uncomfortable truths is often met with painful and unchecked consequences.
In June last year, Zakia...
3 tags
Karzai vows justice will be done 'in the right... →
The Independent
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul and Anne Penketh
Afghanistan’s President has promised justice for Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, raising hopes that the condemned student journalist will be freed.
At a joint press conference with the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, and the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, who arrived in Afghanistan on a previously unannounced visit,...
2 tags
Afghan government official says that student will... →
The Independent
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul and Kim Sengupta
The condemned student journalist Sayed Pervez Kambaksh will not face execution, a senior government official in Afghanistan indicated yesterday.
A ministerial aide, Najib Manalai, insisted: “I am not worried for his life. I’m sure Afghanistan’s justice system will find the best way to avoid this sentence.”
...
2 tags
UN human rights supremo joins campaign to save... →
The Independent
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul and Anne Penketh
The UN’s most senior human rights official has added her clout to the international campaign being waged to save the life of the jailed Afghan student journalist Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, it emerged yesterday.
It is understood that Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, wrote to senior Afghan officials last...
2 tags
Pressure mounts for reprieve of student →
The Independent
By Jerome Starkey
More than 20 international lobby groups came together at the weekend to petition Afghanistan’s President to repeal the death sentence handed down to Sayed Pervez Kambaksh.
The 23-year-old journalism student was sentenced to death by a closed court after distributing an article on women’s rights, an act he claims was aimed at provoking debate. He...
3 tags
Britain planned to train Taliban →
The Sun
By Jerome Starkey, in Kabul and Tom Newton Dunn, Defence Editor
BRITAIN planned a secret training camp in Afghanistan for 2,000 Taliban turncoats, it has emerged.
Diplomats wanted the defecting militiamen to form a paramilitary force to fight the troubled country’s religious fanatics.
Revealed: British plan to build training camp for... →
The Independent
By Jerome Starkey in Kabul
Britain planned to build a Taliban training camp for 2,000 fighters in southern Afghanistan, as part of a top secret deal to make them swap sides, intelligence sources in Kabul have revealed. The plans were discovered on a memory stick seized by Afghan secret police.