A page of news, at a site for and about Afghan Christians
The State Department speaks:
“While we understand the complexity of a case like this and we certainly will respect the sovereignty of the Afghan authorities and the Afghan system, from an American point of view, people should be free to choose their own religion,” Burns told reporters. . . .
Get Religion, as usual, as an excellent summary of the coverage:
The Bush administration may need to bring out a slightly bigger gun — and slightly more compelling rhetoric — if it wants to help Rahman. But why hasn’t Bush addressed the matter? And why aren’t reporters asking him about it?
Bush held a press conference on Tuesday morning where reporters had the chance to ask hard-hitting questions and put him on the spot. Why not ask him why American soldiers are dying in Afghanistan so that a government that executes Christians can be put in place? For a media obsessed with President Bush’s supposed hardline Christianity, they could press him a bit. Or maybe they were too busy composing really tough questions such as “Why did you really want to go to war?” Seriously, Prison Fellowship’s Chuck Colson is tougher on Bush than the press corps:
Is this the fruit of democracy? Is this why we have shed American blood and invested American treasure to set a people free? What have we accomplished for overthrowing the Taliban? This is the kind of thing we would expect from the Taliban, not from President Karzai and his freely elected democratic government.
The Afghan government has distanced itself from the case of a Christian convert who risks the death penalty for apostasy. Under considerable international pressure from human rights groups and western governments, Kabul broke its silence to state that only justice could decide the fate of the Afghan citizen.
Khaleeq Ahmad, speaking in the name of President Hamid Karzai, said: “This matter was brought to the court by the family of the accused, and it must be tackled only by the authorities of justice, that are independent. The government of Afghanistan is nonetheless determined to see that human rights are respected in this country.” No further elaboration was given about this stand. According to Afghan law, however, the President must sign the authorization of the death penalty.
Abdul Rahman, 41 years, was imprisoned two weeks ago, denounced by his family as a convert. The man had left Islam 16 years ago, when he worked for a Christian NGO in Peshawar (Pakistan). He later migrated to Germany, where he lived until 2002. When the Taleban regime was overthrown, he returned to seek custody of his children. Now he risks the death penalty under the Shar’ia Islamic law, the foundation of the Afghan Constitution.
The attitude of the government would seem to confirm statements made by some local analysts, approached by AsiaNews, about the case: “Afghanistan is still in the hands of the mullahs and the Shar’ia has the last word about everything.” The sources – who chose to remain anonymous for security reasons – said “the country’s evolution needs a very long time, because religion is too deeply engrained and the decisions by mullahs, many of who are very ignorant even about religious law, are untouchable.”
The source continued: “That power is still in the hands of Islamic integralists is an objective fact: who won the elections? Who is sitting in parliament? Former mujaheedin and war lords. The judges are ulemas; the man heading the Supreme Court of Kabul – the institution charged with guiding all the national court apparatus – is a super-fundamentalist: Hadi Shinwari, leader of reactionary Afghan clerics.”
Read Previous Post