BBC NEWS | South Asia | Afghan convert ‘leaves for Italy’ — Now we hear that many clerics in Afghanistan called for murdering this guy if he was freed. This just keeps getting better and better, eh? Now he’s headed to Italy and that irks these same people even more.
An Afghan man who escaped a possible death sentence for becoming a Christian has left for Italy where he has been granted asylum, Italian officials say.
…Conversion, or apostasy, is a crime under Afghanistan’s Islamic law.
Mr Rahman, who converted 16 years ago while working as an aid worker for an international Christian group, was arrested after police discovered him with a Bible.
related links:
Rahman a “deadbeat” Dad, creep?
Thoughts on the US Government’s Official do-nothing position:
The State Department, however, didn’t seem to notice the significance of the case — either with respect to what it said about the character of the Afghan government or its impact on domestic politics. At a press conference on Tuesday, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns was asked about the U.S. response to the case. He answered something garbled about process, about needing to “respect the sovereignty of Afghan authorities,” hoping for a “transparent” trial, and, under follow-up questioning, seemed to be making a distinction between Afghan values and the “American point of view” in favor of religious freedom. His annoyance with the persistent line of questioning was his only betrayal of emotion in discussing the case. If Mr. Rahman met up with the sword of sharia, well, it was regrettable, but the democratization project was proceeding apace if the trial was transparent, and the rule of law followed. Whether “self-evident” freedoms were guaranteed or not was simply not a concern.
Sadly, a Canadian (Private Robert Costall) and American soldier were killed yesterday trying to bring freedom and democracy to Afghanistan. It would seem that many there don’t want it. I certainly hope that their heroism and noble sacrifice were not meaningless.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060329.w2soldier0329/BNStory/Afghanistan/home
Isn’t this what the US government is supposedly fighting for? I guess they wanted to avoid taking sides in the whole “religious war” thing. Unfortunately, western ideas (political or social) being imposed on middle-eastern countries amounts to about the same thing as christians vs. muslims. When the romans were trying to deal with all the heretics, mystics, and misfits of their day, they didn’t burn their religious leaders at the stake because they wouldn’t worship Apollo; they did it because their ideas conflicted with the Roman concepts of government. Foreign political leaders often represent religious values in their public policies, and so trying to impose political values on foreign powers, is about the same as religious imposition. I guess someone in the gov’t knew these kinds of sticky situations would arise before we got into this whole thing.
You said:” I guess someone in the gov’t knew these kinds of sticky situations would arise before we got into this whole thing.”
ROFL
Rahman is a “deadbeat dad with psychological problems who couldn’t hold down a job, abused his daughters and parents and didn’t pay child support”. In a country that’s been at war for 28 years and has a per capita income of $800, I’m thinking he’s not particularly unusual in this respect.
An excerpt from the ‘related’ story, a mud-slinging version against Mr. Rahman…
“On Monday several hundred clerics, students and other protestors gathered on the streets of Mazar-i-Sharif calling for his execution and shouting “death to Christians.””
From this statement and many other statements and actions just as discernible, is clear that freedom and democracy in Afghanistan won’t happen in our lifetime. For every ‘Mr. Rahman’ that gets away, dozens more are put to death. In Afghanistan, they still follow barbaric laws established in the 8th century, that has been nurtured by death threats and brain washing from birth. You’ll never wipe all that away in mere decades, or possibly even centuries, especially when the rest of the world shies away in fear to offer comment, opinion or disapproval by western governments.
The fear is real and justified. There are ex-Muslim Christians here in Canada who live in fear of being tracked down and murdered. It is actually Shariah law, the part of Islamic law that governs personal and social issues, that is responsible for Mr. Rahman’s death threats. And here in Canada, a former NDP attorney general, Marion Boyd, recently fought to allow Muslims to establish Shariah-based tribunals in Ontario, sparking worldwide protests. A similar attempt is currently underway in Australia. Pure insanity.
600,000 Muslims live in Canada, and 1.7 billion worldwide. Why so many believers in a religion fraught with a violent (and less than stellar) history and such violent current laws? It’s like Hotel California…. once you’re in, you can never leave. Try doing the math. Growth is eponential. I feel very sorry for the 2 million or so ‘new’ individuals to be born Muslims this year.
Good things Catholics don’t kill apostates (any more). I would be a dead man. Just say NO to organized religion.
In America, when you show respect for, and interest in, other people’s cultures, and you expect other people to have basic common courtesy with respect to other people’s feelings, right wing conservatives mock you and call you all sort of derogatory names.
In Afghanistan, they kill you.
Thank God I live here! And thank God for our soldiers, who don’t care what politics I hold when it hits the fan.
//ken
a former NDP attorney general, Marion Boyd, recently fought to allow Muslims to establish Shariah-based tribunals in Ontario, sparking worldwide protests.
Hey Mac, I would have thought if you are taking the high road, you could get your facts straight. This was a proposal put forth by the Muslim community in Ontario over ten years and three governments ago. It was in keeping with the tradition exercised by Natives in Ontario, and elsewhere in Canada, of traditional justice in Civil cases. The proposal was that disputes may be settled by Muslim tribunals, but had to follow accepted Canadian law, had to be accepted by both parties first, and was not binding if appealed to a Canadian court. These were to be for CIVIL complaints, not CRIMINAL. To suggest that these tribunals would be able to sanction punishment is absolutely absurd. Ms Boyd put forth the proposal for comment, she DID NOT endorse or promote it.
While I did not and do not agree that this is a good idea, I also believe distorting the facts is small, cowardly, and disingenuous.
“He behaves badly with us and we were threatened and disgraced by him. He has no job and has never given me a stitch of clothing or a crust of bread. Just his name as a father,” said his 13-year-old daughter Mariam in a statement signed with her inky fingerprint.
He had no job or income, the same as 90% of Afghanis. So why did Mariam sign her name with her finger dipped in ink? Would it be because the Taliban not only did not allow females to be educated, but would have killed her father if he had remained in Afghanistan? Would she prefer the Taliban were still in power?
Maybe the Nuclear cloud over Kabul would have been a lot cheaper on September 12, 2001.
“Ms Boyd put forth the proposal for comment, she DID NOT endorse or promote it.”
>> Mr. Fusion, get YOUR facts straight before you make a fool of yourself again.
Read the following article, and excerpt:
http://www.ichrdd.ca/site/publications/index.php?subsection=catalogue&lang=en&id=1431
“Marion Boyd concluded that since arbitration is a process “in which people participate only by choice,” it should remain a viable alternative to the public courts. She recommended the use of religious laws be permitted to accommodate values and beliefs that may be different from Ontario law.”