Afghanistan Pressed To Free Christian

International pressure is mounting against Afghanistan over the case of Abdur Rahman, on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity. Rahman faces the death penalty because he refuses to become a Muslim again.

The United States, Germany and Italy, have all expressed concern over Rahman's plight:

US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Monday that freedom of worship and tolerance were important for any democracy. "These are issues, as Afghan democracy matures, that they are going to have to deal with increasingly," he said.

German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul told Bild newspaper Tuesday that religious freedom was "everybody's right" and urged Karzai to step in.

[. . .]

The country's secretary of state for defence Friedbert Pflueger also told Bild that Germany had contributed 2,450 soldiers to the NATO peacekeeping force in Afghanistan to help it "become a democratic country, not so that people can be sentenced to death on religious grounds."

Italy added its voice to the concerns as Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini summoned the Afghan ambassador to "shed light" on the situation. He ordered the Italian ambassador in Kabul to approach Afghan authorities over the issue.

Publicly, the U.S. is taking what many Americans will see as a much too diplomatic approach to this case.

US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said Tuesday that it concerned broader freedoms, which he said were enshrined in Afghan statutes.

We believe in universal freedoms and freedom of religion is one of them. But I should also note more particularly, as regards this case, that the Afghan constitution as we understand it also provides for freedom of religion.

But Burns suggested that Washington would not try to impose its will in the controversial case.
"We hope that the Afghan constitution is going to be upheld and in our view if it is upheld, he will be found to be innocent.

The Chicago Tribune's Kim Barker does a wonderful job of explaining how wrong Rahman's conversion seems to Afghans:

Prosecutors say he should die. So do his family, his jailers, even the judge.

[. . .]

"We are Muslim, our fathers were Muslim, our grandfathers were Muslim," said Abdul Manan, Rahman's father, who is 75. "This is an Islamic country. Imagine if your son told a police commander, also a Muslim, that he is a Christian. How would this affect you? It's very difficult for us."

[. . .]

"He is my son," said Manan, crying. "But if a son does not care about the dignity of his family, the dignity of his father, God can take him away. You cannot make anything out of such a son. He is useless."

Rahman's plight should not come as a surprise. If you read a little about Islam it soon becomes clear that most Muslims believe once a Muslim always a Muslim. Worse, most Muslims believe any one who gives up Islam deserves death.

At Counterterrorism Blog, Daveed Garteinstein-Ross is much more eloquent:

This case has generated an enormous amount of media attention because the U.S. and its allies liberated Afghanistan from the fundamentalist Taliban regime, so Westerners find it disconcerting that people can still be killed in that country for leaving the Islamic faith. While this media attention is warranted, it is important for observers to understand that the problem of apostasy laws reaches far beyond Abdul Rahman and Afghanistan.

This is fundamentally an issue that people in the counterterrorism field and those who follow terrorism should care about. The Bush administration has invested in a strategy of democratization to counter the extremism that can be found in the Islamic world. But voting rights will not serve as an effective counterbalance to extremism if voting is simply superimposed over the current Middle Eastern political systems, with their lack of basic political freedoms. The most crucial freedoms for creating true democracy in the Middle East are freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion -- and of these, the lack of freedom of religion in the region is the most dramatic.

A number of us expressed fears that the Afghan Constitution did not adequately protect freedom of religion. In December 2003 I posted:

Our long term strategy in the war against terror is to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East. President Bush set forth this strategy very eloquently in the Advance of Freedom speech he gave at the National Endowment for Democracy and the Three Pillars speech he gave at Whitehall Palace.

If this strategy is to have a chance to succeed, we must ensure that governmental structures are in place that will give freedom, especially freedom of speech and religion, a chance. Unfortunately, the draft Afghan constitution doesn’t do that. If it doesn’t then neither will Iraq’s fundamental law.

Unfortunately, we didn't protest enough as Andrew McCarthy so articulately writes at the National Review Online:

You reap what you sow. What is happening in Afghanistan (and in Iraq) is precisely what we bought on to when we actively participated in the drafting of constitutions which — in a manner antithetical to the development of true democracy — ignored the imperative to insulate the civil authority from the religious authority, installed Islam as the state religion, made sharia a dominant force in law, and expressly required that judges be trained in Islamic jurisprudence. To have done all those things makes outrage at today’s natural consequences ring hollow.

This is a test of freedom for Afghanistan, and it appears Afghanistan is feeling the heat and looking for a face-saving way out.

Prosecutor Sarinwal Zamari said questions have been raised about Rahman's mental fitness:

"We think he could be mad. He is not a normal person. He doesn't talk like a normal person," he told The Associated Press.

So the international pressure may be helping Rahman. You can help:

Contact the Afghan Embassy:

Ambassador Said T. Jawad Embassy of Afghanistan 2341 Wyoming Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20008 info@embassyofafghanistan.org 202-483-6410

Contact the White House:

202-456-1111

Contact the State Department:

202-647-4000

And call the Embassy of Afghanistan:
(Or e-mail.)
Sign a Petition in support of Abdur Rahman, E-mail President Bush, and write the embassy of Afghanistan (hat tip - A Lady's Ruminations):

If you can join the rally for Abdul Rahman outside the Afghan embassy in Washington, D.C.:

Friday March 24 Noon to 1pm Outside the Afghan Embassy 2341 Wyoming Ave NW. Washington DC

Michelle Malkin has more.

At Hyscience, Richard sums up the feelings of most Americans:

As I said yesterday, If after spilling American blood in Afghanistan to not only remove it as a safe haven for Al-Qaeda but to also free it's people from the repressive Taliban regime, a man can still be executed for converting from Islam to Christianity, then we have completely wasted precious American lives, and the Islamists of Afghanistan are too deeply locked into the barbarism of the middle ages and too backward, to be brought into the modern world.

President Bush needs to be much more forceful about Abdul Rahman's plight than this diplomatically correct comment reported by the Associated Press:

We expect them to honor the universal principle of freedom," Bush said. "I'm troubled when I hear, deeply troubled when I hear, the fact that a person who converted away from Islam may be held to account. That's not the universal application of the values that I talked about. I look forward to working with the government of that country to make sure that people are protected in their capacity to worship.

How about saying something like, if you want Christian help don't put Christians on trial for being Christian.

Comments

[Fiml]

I like it very much

[Walter E. Wallis]

It has always been a mistake to accomodate the Islamic abuse of other religions. Had we limited the freedom of movement of Muslims as long as they limited religious freedom in their lands we would never have come to this. Acceptance of differences is a price the Islamics must pay if they want to join the world. Start right now.

[KipEsquire]

Meanwhile, our "trusted ally," the UAE, criminalizes the attempted conversion of Muslims.

Different magnitude, but the same pathology.