U.S. frees Afghans from Taliban gives billions of dollars
in aid and thousands of troops (including Christians) sacrificed their lives. Now
Christians face death. Judge looking at insanity plea for converting from Islam.
Despite the overthrow of the Taliban government and the presence of 22,500 U.S. troops in
Afghanistan, a man who converted to Christianity is being prosecuted in Kabul, and if
convicted, he faces the death penalty.
Abdul Rahman, who is in his 40s, says he converted to Christianity 16 years ago while
working as an aid worker helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Relatives denounced him as a
convert during a custody battle over his children, and he was arrested.
The prosecutor says Rahman was found with a Bible.
Many countries have have called on President Hamid Karzai to intervene. During Taliban
times, men were forced to kneel in prayer five times a day, and couples faced the death
penalty for sex outside marriage. Reform efforts have been slow, say experts, since there
are so few judges and lawyers with experience.
The U.S. State Department is watching the case closely and considers it a barometer of how
well democracy is developing in Afghanistan. "Our view … is that tolerance,
freedom of worship is an important element of any democracy," State Department
spokesman Sean McCormack said. "And these are issues as Afghan democracy matures that
they are going to have to deal with increasingly."
A number of Christian nonprofit groups do humanitarian work in Afghanistan. Dominic Nutt
of Christian Aid calls the Rahman case a step backward for the country, especially if
Rahman is executed. Nutt, who has spent time in Afghanistan, says "few practitioners
are used to the concept of democracy and toleration …many are educated only in
Islamic law."
Presiding judge Ansarullah Mawlazezadah said a medical team was checking the defendant,
since the team suspects insanity caused Rahman to reject Islam.
President Bush had received the message. In a public statement, he spoke to values and was
unequivocal about where he stood: “It is deeply troubling that a country we helped
liberate would hold a person to account because they chose a particular religion over
another.”
Rahman is not the only case where execution has been threatened over beliefs and ideas in
the new Afghanistan. Last year, an Afghan journalist who argued against the heresy law was
found guilty of it, and escaped death after international pressure. Before then, a female
cabinet member was charged with blasphemy for criticizing Islamic law, but was also spared
after international protest erupted. Other journalists were imprisoned for
blasphemy after debating the compatibility of sharia law with democracy, but then
quietly allowed to leave the country. It is even reported that other Christian converts
are in prison there but not much is known about them.
The administration needs to rescue Rahman as he is determined not to be found
“innocent” as Undersecretary Burns had hoped.
But this is about more than Mr. Rahman. This will be a persistent, recurring problem under
Afghanistan’s sharia apostasy and blasphemy laws. The administration also needs to do
more to ensure the reform Afghanistan’s judiciary. President Karzai must be
encouraged to wrest it from the control of Islamists like Supreme Court Chief Justice Fazl
Hadi Shinwari, who once told our National Public Radio that it is his duty as a
judge to “behead” those who do not conform to Islamic law. Americans
continue to give billions of dollars, and sacrifice their lives to support the Afghan
government. It not only serves compelling humanitarian interests to use this leverage now,
but it would be a betrayal of America’s deepest national values not to. |
