! MORE CHRISTIANS ARRESTED " !

[Alex The Hawk]

More Christians Arrested in Wake of Afghan ?Apostasy? Case
Barbara G. Baker
Compass Direct
March 23, 2006
An avalanche of media coverage of an Afghan man facing the death penalty
for converting to Christianity has apparently sparked the arrest and
deepening harassment of other Afghan Christians in the
ultra-conservative Muslim country.
Authorities arrested Abdul Rahman, 41, last month for apostasy, a
capital offense under strict Islamic laws still in place in Afghanistan,
which four years ago was wrested from the Taliban regime’s
hard-line Islamist control.
During the past few days, Compass has confirmed the arrest of two other
Afghan Christians elsewhere in the country. Because of the sensitive
situation, local sources requested that the location of the jailed
converts be withheld.
This past weekend, one young Afghan convert to Christianity was beaten
severely outside his home by a group of six men, who finally knocked him
unconscious with a hard blow to his temple. He woke up in the hospital
two hours later but was discharged before morning.
“Our brother remains steadfast, despite the ostracism and
beatings,� one of his friends said.
Several other Afghan Christians have been subjected to police raids on
their homes and places of work in the past month, as well as to
telephone threats.
First Known Apostasy Case
Rahman was put on trial in Kabul last week for the
“crime� of converting from Islam to Christianity and
faces the death penalty for refusing to return to the Muslim faith.
But news of his case did not break until March 16, when Ariana TV
announced it. According to the TV newscaster, Rahman was asked in court,
“Do you confess that you have apostacized from Islam?�
The defendant answered, “No, I am not an apostate. I believe in
God.�
He was then questioned, “Do you believe in the Quran?�
Rahman responded, “I believe in the New Testament, and I love
Jesus Christ.�
Although Islamist militants have captured and murdered at least five
Afghan Christians in the past two years for abandoning Islam,
Rahman’s case is the local judiciary’s first known
prosecution case for apostasy in recent decades.
During Rahman’s initial hearing before the head judge of
Kabul’s Primary Court, he testified that he had become a
Christian 16 years ago, while working with a Christian relief
organization in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, near the Afghan border.
But after his conversion, Rahman’s wife divorced him, so their
two infant daughters were taken back to Afghanistan, where they have
been raised by their paternal grandparents.
Soon afterwards Rahman left Pakistan, and over the next few years he
managed to enter several European countries. Although he attempted to
apply for asylum, he was never able to obtain legal immigration status.
After nine years, many of them in European detention centers because he
had no valid papers, he was finally deported back to Afghanistan in
2002.
Back in Kabul, Rahman eventually contacted his family. In recent months,
he tried repeatedly to regain custody of his daughters, now 13 and 14
years of age.
“The father finally went to the police in order to stop Abdul
from contacting him, by telling them that Abdul converted to
Christianity,� a Kabul source said. He was promptly taken into
custody, interrogated and sent to jail to await trial.
Although Rahman is allowed to have a defense lawyer, he has declined,
insisting he can defend himself. But according to Christian sources in
Kabul, the convert suffers from recurring mental instability, which
could alter the Islamic court’s handling of his case.
Rahman is reportedly incarcerated with 50 other prisoners in a cell
designed for 15 in Kabul’s Central Prison, where members of the
press have been denied access to him. Since he is estranged from his
family, and prisoners are traditionally dependent upon food rations
supplied by their families, it is unclear whether he is being fed
regularly.
Labeled a ‘Cancer’
If Rahman is found guilty of apostasy and given the death penalty, as
demanded by prosecutor Abdul Wasi, Afghan law permits him two final
appeals â€" first to the provincial court, and then the Supreme
Court.
Calling Rahman a “traitor to Islam,� Wasi told the court
he was “like a cancer inside Afghanistan.�
Wasi told the Associated Press (AP) that when he offered to drop all the
charges against Rahman if he returned to Islam, the defendant refused.
“He said he was a Christian and would always remain
one,� Wasi said.
“We are Muslims, and becoming a Christian is against our
laws,� the prosecutor concluded. “He must get the death
penalty.�
Rahman is being tried by Judge Ansarullah Mawlavizada, who has said he
would issue a verdict on the case within two months.
“We are not against any particular religion in the
world,� the judge told the AP on March 19. “But in
Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law. It is an attack on
Islam.�
On March 20, however, Judge Mawlavizada told the British Broadcasting
Corporation that Rahman’s mental state would be considered
first, “before he was dealt with under sharia [Islamic]
law.�
President Hamid Karzai’s office has said the president will not
intervene in the case. But today a religious adviser to Karzai announced
that Rahman would be given psychological tests.
“Doctors must examine him,� Moayuddin Baluch told the
AP. “If he is mentally unfit, definitely Islam has no claim to
punish him. He must be forgiven. The case must be dropped.�
Although the Afghan government is clearly anxious to resolve
Rahman’s case in order to satisfy international criticisms, the
state-sponsored Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has
reportedly called for Rahman to be punished, insisting that he had
“clearly violated Islamic law.�
Rahman’s plight dramatizes the judicial paradox within
Afghanistan’s new constitution, ratified in January 2004.
Although it guarantees freedom of religion to non-Muslims, it also
prohibits laws that are “contrary to the beliefs and provisions
of the sacred religion of Islam.�
At the same time, the constitution obliges the state to abide by the
treaties and conventions it has signed, which include the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. In outlining freedoms of thought,
conscience and religion, Article 18 of this convention explicitly
guarantees “freedom to change [one’s] religion or
belief.�
Less than 1 percent of the Afghan population is non-Muslim, mostly
Hindus and Sikhs. Among the millions of Afghans living abroad during
recent decades of conflict in their homeland, some have openly declared
themselves Christians. But no churches exist inside Afghanistan, and
local converts to Christianity fear retribution if they declare their
faith.
International Outcry
Before he was dropped from the Afghan government’s cabinet
today, reporters grilled Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah yesterday
(March 21) about his country’s controversial
“apostasy� case during a Washington, D.C. press
conference focusing on this week’s U.S.-Afghan strategic
partnership talks in Washington.
Acknowledging that the Afghan Embassy in Washington had received
hundreds of messages since the trial of Afghan Christian Abdul Rahman
was made public last week, Abdullah insisted that his government had
nothing to do with the case.
Rahman, who is charged with abandoning Islam 16 years ago, is liable for
execution under Afghanistan’s Islamic law statutes.
“I know that it is a very sensitive issue and we know the
concerns of the American people,� Abdullah said. “But I
hope that through our constitutional process, there will be a
satisfactory result.�
Speaking at Abdullah’s side, Nicholas Burns, U.S. undersecretary
of state of political affairs, sidestepped direct U.S. interference in
Afghan sovereignty while admitting, “… from an American
point of view, people should be free to choose their own
religion.�
Two days ago, the U.S. State Department had confirmed that the United
States was “following closely� the trial proceedings,
emphasizing that there were “differing interpretations�
of the current Afghan constitution within the country. The Afghan
authorities were being urged to “conduct this trial … in
as transparent a manner as possible,� the spokesman said.
Meanwhile, Western allies in the international coalition of troops
deployed in Afghanistan have expressed outrage and point-blank
condemnation of the trial over the past three days.
Lawmakers and leaders in Italy and Germany declared pointedly that it
was “intolerable� that soldiers of all faiths should die
to protect a country threatening to kill its own citizens for converting
to Christianity. Canada confirmed that it was also “closely
watching� the case, while the German Foreign Minister said he
viewed it with “great concern.�
“If Afghanistan does not quickly modernize its legal
system,� German opposition politician Rainer Bruderle told the
daily Bild today, “Germany must rethink its help for
Afghanistan.�
After the Italian government summoned the Afghan ambassador to Rome
yesterday to discuss Rahman’s case, a Foreign Ministry statement
pledged that Italy would “move at the highest level … to
prevent something which is incompatible with the defense of human rights
and fundamental freedoms.�
From the British Parliament, Nick Harvey of the Liberal Democrats
remarked, “To prosecute or even kill someone for having a
different faith is unacceptable.� Labour Member of Parliament
Alan Simpson agreed, declaring in a statement to The Times in London,
“This absurdity must stop.�
A strong protest was also lodged before the European Parliament by Dr.
Charles Tannock, who questioned the European Union’s generous
funding of a country “which appears to ignore its international
legal obligations, and apparently is still ruled by a fundamentalist
version of Islamic sharia law.� The parliamentarian called for a
plea of clemency to be issued by the EU, requesting Afghanistan to exile
Rahman to another country where his religious freedom would be
guaranteed.
But one Afghan cabinet official has reacted sharply to the German
government’s blunt criticism of the trial, telling the Neue
Osnabrueceker Zeitung newspaper that “the heated and emotional
reaction of German politicians is exaggerated and has caused annoyance
among Afghans.�
Afghan Economy Minister Amin Farhang claimed that although
“fanatics demand the death penalty in such cases,� such
a sentence was unlikely against Rahman.
Copyright 2006 Compass Direct.

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[RedAllison]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/03/28/christian.convert/index.html

$100 he ends up in the U.S. on welfare!!!
RA