While we’re reporting about Web 2.0, another writer is facing death

Written on 30th January 2008                                                                                                              3 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Before I started working at The Next Web Blog, I covered news at the United Nations headquarters, New York. On a daily basis, spokespersons and diplomats confronted me with colleagues all over the world being threatened to death for their articles. Think of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston and Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Soliman. While what we Web 2.0 bloggers do is also important – after all, Web 2.0 is changing our societies – it doesn’t hurt anybody to realize what some of our fellow writers go through every day.

Think of Pervez Kambaksh, the 23-year old Afghan journalist whose sentenced to death for blasphemy. BBC reports today that the upper house of the Afghan parliament has supported this sentence. Kambaksh allegedly downloaded and distributed an article insulting Islam. He has denied the charge.

Kambaksh, who studies at Balkh University and writes for small newspaper Jahan-e Naw (New World), is a colleague of all writers, including bloggers. To support this man, sign the petition we started on iPetitions.com

Spread the word by pasting the URL of the petition – http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Pervez_Kambaksh – in your Twitter feed, blog, Facebook profile or any other online publishing tool.