From AP via globeandmail.com:

Conservative clerics and elders demanded Thursday that the Afghan government not interfere with a controversial death sentence handed down to a young journalist convicted of insulting Islam for distributing a report questioning polygamy.

Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh, 23, was sentenced to death on Jan. 22 by a three-judge panel in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif for handing out a report he printed off the Internet to fellow journalism students at Balkh University.

The article questioned why men can have four wives but women cannot have multiple husbands.

Mr. Kaambakhsh has appealed his conviction.

 More than 100 tribal and religious leaders convened Wednesday in Gardez, the capital of the conservative eastern province of Paktia, and demanded that the government support the sentence.

“Kaambakhsh made the Afghan people very upset. It was against the clerics and Islam. He has humiliated Islam,” Khaliq Daad, head of the Islamic council of Paktia, said Thursday. “We want the Afghan president to support the court's decision.”