We brought you earlier the case of Afgjan magazine editor Ali Mohaqiq Nasab (pictured), who was arrested on October 1 on charges of blasphemy, for publishing two articles which were deemed by clerics "offensive to Islam". The articles appeared in his monthly magazine Haqooq-i-Zan (Women's Rights). One claimed that the action of leaving Islam (apostasy) should not be considered a crime to be punished by the death penalty. The other questioned if it was right to stone women to death. On October 22, he was sentenced to two years' jail with hard labour in Kabul's Primary Court, by presiding judge Ansarullah Malawizada. The judge said "The Ulama Council sent us a letter saying that he should be punished so I sentenced him to two years' jail." On October 18, Afghanistan's Media Commission held a meeting which decided that Ali Mohaqiq Nasab's articles did not insult Islam, stated the head of Afghanistan's Independent Association of Journalists, according to the Pak Tribune which added: Robert Kluyver, the country representative for the Open Society Institute in Afghanistan, believes the case is politically motivated. He said Mohaqiq Nasab ran into trouble with conservative Shi'ite clerics when he was campaigning as a candidate for parliament. "It is a case where conservative Shi'a clerics are fighting the more moderate Shi'a. In other words, it very much reminds one of the problem that exists in Iran. It was a general Shi'a issue. Meanwhile, Ali Mohaqeq Nasab was also a candidate for parliament [and was] attacked by more conservative Shi'a clergy for his more modernist views on religion," Kluyver said. The case was condemned internationally, with a group of Canada-based Afghan writers sending a message to President Hamid Karzai, saying Nasab's case was "the imprisonment of all writers in Afghanistan. International organisations The French Reporters sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders) and the US Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the sentence. On Wednesday 21 December, the issue came to court again, as recorded by CPJ. An appeals court reduced his sentence from two years to six months, with the remaining three months suspended. Court spokesman Walik Omeri stated that Ali Mohaqiq Nasab would be freed within days. In court today, state prosecutor Zmarai Amiri asked the court to impose the death penalty, according to Rahimullah Samander of the Afghan Independent Journalists' Association. Two lawyers aided Nasab's defense. Nasab was also allowed to address the court and cited Afghanistan's constitutional protection of free speech and the country's media law, Samander told CPJ. Under the revised media law, signed in March 2004, journalists can be detained only with the approval of a special commission of government officials and journalists established to review such cases. This approval was not obtained before Nasab's arrest. 17 members sit on this commission. The CPJ director, Ann