Kabul

The Democracy
That Karzai Provides

Mr. Latif Pedram, a poet, author of many books and the leader of National Congress Party of Afghanistan has been under house arrest for the past couple months, furthermore now the government has banned his political party.

As we are getting close to the next presidential election President Hamid Karzai and his favored political party Afghan Mellat, a pro Pashtun nationalistic movement, has been creating problems for their biggest rival Dr. Pedram.
Karzai wants to discredit Dr Pedram to ruin his chances of winning the next election

Latif Pedram was positioned de facto under house arrest, in a house delimited by the police and security forces from the Ministry of Interior, by order of the Attorney General. The former particularly forbade him to leave the country for having allegedly witnessed an altercation between two Afghani political personalities. Latif Pedram had merely been asked to facilitate the discussion between these two politicians.

The case of house arrest appeared to be not strong enough to pull Pedram away from next year presidential election, although there is a new conspiracy is going on.

An Afghan German citizen Abdul Khaliq Noori, a Former communist, Pro Taliban and the current member of Afghan Mellat party, modified Pedram’s voice in an audio clip where it called former king Amanullah Khan a criminal.

While being interviewed on Khorasan TV, Dr Pedram claimed that the former King illegally distributed other ethnics' lands to his Pashtun people in northern and central Afghanistan during his time. Nevertheless the clip had been taken from Pedram’s speech modified and cut.

Amanullah Khan, who assassinated his father, King Habibullah On February 20, 1919, and took the kingdom from him, has been known for defeating the British and keeping independence of its foreign affairs from the United Kingdom.

July 24 2008, Shamshad TV, a pro Afghan Mellat Party channel, broadcast Pedram’s modified audio clip and accused him of disrespecting the former pro nationalist Pashtun king. The clip has been transferred around the country provoking the nationalist Pashtun residents to march against Pedram’s comment.

July 26, people were being paid by the Afghan Mellat party to demonstrate against Pedram in Ohatkhel, a Pashtun village near Kabul city.
Afghan Mellat members are also protesting in Jalalabad and Herat cities as well. Jalalabad protesters asked Kabul government to jail Latif Pedram or Pashtun youths would take action against Pedram directly.

In a meeting by tribesmen in Paktia province on July 28, the Pashtun tribesmen said they would pay two hundred thousand dollars to anyone who can kill Dr. Latif Pedram. they accused Dr. Pedram for disrespected their Former King.

On July 27, The Government Minister for Parliamentary Affairs published a statement where they banned the Latif Pedram political party from any type of activities. The statement also said that nobody has the right to comment about any politicians, former kings, president and Jihadist leaders.

Latif Pedram, an ethnic Tajik Federalist and a Modern Secular Leader has been supported and admired by the many people especially youth, he subsequently moved from Europe to Afghanistan following September 11, terrorist attack in the US.

2005, Latif Pedram electrified a lackluster campaign by plummeting into the matrimonial politics of Islam: posing challenging questions about the right of Afghan men to have several wives and about women's divorce rights.
The reaction to his ideas was tectonic. The Supreme Court of Afghanistan accused him of blasphemy and sought his expulsion from the race and many Pashtun radical leaders called on him to be hung. But the body organizing elections for the government and United Nations refused to strike him from the ballot.

Dr. Pedram has received many international awards, such as The Prix Hellman-Helmet (Hellman-Helmet Prize) by Human Rights Watch in July 1999 and a special grant from Reporters sans Frontières in December 1998. Although despondently in a country where almost of all of the citizens are being brainwashed by Islamic fundamentalists and tribalism, it is not very easy for such a leader to reach his modernization goals quickly and without any headache.