Parwez Kambakhsh was convicted of blasphemy for asking questions in a university class about women's rights under Islam. Prosecutors also said he illegally distributed an article he printed off the Internet that asks why Islam does not modernize to give women equal rights. He also allegedly wrote his own comments on the paper.
The case against the 24-year-old Kambakhsh, whose brother has angered Afghan warlords with his own writings, has come to symbolize Afghanistan's slide toward an ultraconservative view on religious and individual freedoms.
Human Rights Watch said Kambakhsh had not committed a crime and called on President Hamid Karzai to pardon him.
''The Supreme Court represented the last hope that Parwez Kambakhsh would receive a fair hearing, but once again justice was denied,'' said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
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