Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Two expelled on blasphemy charge in Herat
HERAT: Two Afghan university students have been expelled after they were accused of “humiliating” Islam, an education official said on Monday.
The two, Atif Jawed and Tariq Walipur, were dismissed by the chairman of Herat University following complaints from classmates and a teacher about comments they made about Islam during a religious debate, the official said. “They have both been expelled,” said Mohammad Dawood Munir, dean of the Languages Department of Herat University.
Munir did not elaborate on what led to the accusation of blasphemy. Afghanistan is a deeply conservative Islamic country but since the ouster of the hardline Taliban in late 2001 there has been debate between conservatives and liberals about the role of religion in public life. A new constitution does not stipulate a punishment for blasphemy. Munir said the university in the western city had referred the case to the prosecutor’s office, which could make a decision about the pair, who were in their fourth year of a journalism course and in their early 20s.
One of the accused, Walipur protested against the expulsion and denied making any blasphemous statement. “We raised some questions in the class which were misinterpreted by the teacher and classmates. The expulsion decision is an oppression,” he told Reuters. In 2003 authorities detained two journalists on similar charges but they managed to flee from detention in Kabul and were later given asylum in Canada.
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