Suspended Afghan MP Malalai Joya was one of the first to react to the release of journalism student Parvez Kambaksh. She said “My first thought when I heard of his release was relief that his months of detention and pain were over.

“Karzai kept him in prison to gain the support of fundamentalists and keep them happy until the voting was over. Now, he has freed Kambaksh in a bid to present the rigged and fraudulent elections as free and fair – to throw dust in the eyes of the world and fool people into thinking that freedom of speech is not dead in Afghanistan. But this does not mean that the Afghan people enjoy democracy.

“Journalists continue to be threatened, murdered and forced to flee the country. They are constantly under pressure from the fundamentalists and cannot publish a single word against any of them. Censorship is rampant. The only newspapers allowed to be published are those that do not target foreign occupiers, fundamentalist criminals and druglords.

“I hope that while benefiting from the situation in the West, Kambaksh never forgets that Afghanistan, dominated by Northern Alliance, National Front, Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists, is still a huge prison for millions of his oppressed people.

“Thousands of his supporters, within and outside the country, are looking to him to continue his struggle for independence, freedom and democracy against the fundamentalists and their masters.”