A Young Life Hangs in the Balance in Afghanistan's Cultural War

The Kambakhsh case is only the latest in a series of incidents in which journalists and publishers have come under legal and religious pressure for disseminating material or ideas deemed anti-Islamic. Late last year, a government press aide, Ghaus Zalmai, was arrested and nearly lynched for circulating a translation of the Koran in Afghan Dari that senior religious scholars had not approved. He is still in prison awaiting trial.

This time, deluged with protests from international human rights groups and governments that provide the bulk of aid and security for his country, Karzai has tried to find a diplomatic middle ground. Last week, asked about Kambakhsh during a one-day visit here by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, he carefully promised that "justice will be done, in the right way."

At home, the controversy has brought out competing public demands from organized groups on both sides of the culture war.

An influential council of religious scholars has pressed for Kambakhsh's execution and also for the return of harsh public punishments once carried out by Taliban authorities. Its leaders say that they fear young Afghans will fall prey to the libertine influence of the West and that the international community's aid is not worth the undermining of Islam.

"If Afghanistan is a free country, the foreigners should not interfere. If they support this boy, people will start to hate them," said Balegh, the imam. "We appreciate the help of foreign troops, but if the Americans and the British are coming here and sending their money to use against Islam, we don't want them. Either we have our own laws and traditions or we are an occupied country."

At the same time, newly emboldened civic organizations have held unprecedented street protests defending Kambakhsh in Kabul and Jalalabad, while national press associations appear to have played a careful role in persuading authorities to take a closer look at the case.

Nevertheless, these groups say they feel under increasing threat from the combined forces of conservative religious and armed political groups that still command enormous power, especially in rural provinces where Karzai's government is weak. They assert that the prosecution of Kambakhsh was intended to intimidate his older brother, an established journalist in Mazar-e Sharif who has investigated corruption and abuses by former militia leaders.

"They are putting pressure, they are trying to censor the press. As long as we have such contradictions in our own laws and constitution, it will continue," said Samander, president of the journalists' association. He noted that police searching Kambakhsh's home had confiscated writings on human rights and modern thought, including a classic study of religion by Will Durant. "I have that book here in my office," he said with a wry grimace.