Reporter: Shabnam Rezaee
Lack of freedom of expression, censorship, and threats against writers, artists, journalists, and dissidents is one of the major challenges of Afghan society. many writers have been threatened with death by religious institutions and retrogressive groups. the stance of some religious extremists against the book “A Piece of Paradise” is a great example of it.
A group of religious fundamentalists in Afghanistan has called the book “A Piece of Paradise” by Ali Payam, a contemporary Afghan writer, blasphemous. and has called for the book to be banned and the writer to be punished.
The group has written a letter to the public as well as other religious institutions. In the letter, they condemned the author and called for punishment and said.
“We have carefully read a book called (A Piece of Paradise) written by someone named Ali Payam. In this book, the author has publicly and openly insulted and mocked our religious rites, especially the graves of the Imams. According to jurisprudence and religious orders, insulting the graves of Imams is not only a great sin but an absolute blasphemy and infidelity.”
They have also referred to the laws of blasphemy in Islam in their letter and said. “According to Shari’s laws insulting and mocking the graves of Imams, holy places, and religious rites is blasphemy. and the punishment for committing blasphemy is death.”
Moreover, they cited parts of the book that they consider blasphemous and said that according to Islamic scholars what is obtained from this book shows the author has practically and openly insulted and blasphemed the Islam religion and the Imams, which according to religious texts and the orders of religious scholars, the author deserves to be killed.
They also said that the book (a piece of paradise) is a deceptive book. Mullahs believe that such books mislead readers and are written with the intention of misleading people. Maintaining, purchasing, selling, duplicating, publishing, reading, and teaching such deceptive publications is forbidden, according to Shiite jurists’ fatwas and it is obligatory for every Muslim to destroy such books.
From their statement, we can clearly see that a group of fundamentalists is trying to suffocate the freedom of expression and pluralism in Afghanistan by activating the machine of censorship, and inquisition.
Therefore, Given the situation in Afghanistan, we expect The international community, civil society activists, and human rights defenders in various countries not to allow Afghanistan to be completely swallowed by extremist groups. writers, artists, civil society activists, and journalists to face daily threats.
