As Donald Rumsfeld (remember him?) used to say, ‘freedom is untidy’. And messy.

The upper house of the Afghan parliament has supported a death sentence issued against a journalist for blasphemy in northern Afghanistan.

Pervez Kambaksh, 23, was convicted last week of downloading and distributing an article insulting Islam. He has denied the charge.

Still, at least it’s improvement on the Taliban. Under that lot Kambaksh probably wouldn’t have even got a farcical trial before they killed him.