Has a young Afghan journalism student been sentenced to death to intimidate his older brother, also a journalist?

On Tuesday, a court in Mazar-i-Sharif sentenced Sayad Parwez Kambaksh, 23, to death for distributing an article it deemed to be insulting to Islam.

From the Telegraph:

This is unfair, this is illegal," said Rahimullah Samander, president of the Afghan Independent Journalists' Association (AIJA). "This is too big for a small mistake - he just printed a copy and looked at this and read it. How can we believe in this 'democracy' if we can't even read, we can't even study?"

The AIJA urged President Hamid Karzai to intervene in the case and quash the death sentence. The penalty must be confirmed by a higher court before it can be inflicted.

But campaigners believe that the court's real motive was not protecting the honour of Islam. Mr Kaambakhsh's brother, Yaqub Ibrahimi, also works as a journalist and has written a series of reports on atrocities committed by senior politicians in northern Afghanistan.

The authorities may have been trying to silence him by threatening Mr Kaambakhsh's life. Jean MacKenzie, country director for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, which trains Afghan journalists, said: "We feel very strongly that this is a complete fabrication on the part of the authorities up in Mazar, designed to put pressure on Parwez's brother, Yaqub, who has done some of the hardest-hitting pieces outlining abuses by some very powerful commanders in Balkh and the other northern provinces."

Here's an IWPR article from Jan. 22.