"Dost’s satirical penchant had gotten him into trouble before. After he wrote a poem lampooning an Islamic cleric in Peshawar, he said, the man bore him such a grudge that he fingered him to Pakistani intelligence agents, leading to his arrest…

"At Guantanamo, he said, he had to spend hours explaining to interrogators a satirical essay he had published in 1998, after President Bill Clinton offered a $5 million reward for Osama bin Laden. Dost’s essay offered a reward of 5 million afghanis – then the equivalent of about $113, he said – for Clinton."

Fabulous. So an unaccountable expansionist superpower and its cowering client state are locking people up in prison camps for making anti-government jokes. Now, where have I heard that one before?

(via Belle. I hope she’s right when she says "Look, my country is better than this.")