Afghan Christian Seeking Asylum

[brooklynite]

KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan man who faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity has appealed for asylum in another country, the United Nations said Monday.

U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards said the world body was working with the Afghan government to meet the request by Abdul Rahman, 41.

"Mr. Rahman has asked for asylum outside Afghanistan," he said. "We expect this will be provided by one of the countries interested in a peaceful solution to this case."

Earlier, hundreds of people protested a court's decision Sunday to drop the case against Rahman, and an official said discussions were underway to determine when he would be released.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060327/ap_on_re_as/afghan_christian_convert
- - -
Why do I think W hasn't extricated himself from this morass yet?

[JohnnyRingo]

1. Maybe taxpayers can buy him a small business too

Set him up in the New World with a business...Just like America does for all poverty striken Christians here.

The wave of Afghan and Iraqi converts will reach around the block in a week.

Propganda 101

[TallahasseeGrannie]

2. Seems like a sensible solution to me.

[Disturbed]

3. This story is real strange.

I read that he has been a Christian for 15 years. If this is true then he must have kept that a secret until recently because he would surely have been executed during the Taliban Reign. The Court dropped his case "due to lack of evidence". What lack of evidence? He said that he is a Christian. What more evidence was required?

The US Govt. must grant him assylum or it will look real bad for the US Govt. After all, it was the US Govt. that "liberated" Afghanistan and forced "Democracy" on to the country.

[RawMaterials]

4. obl new plan

sort of a trojan horse

[neweurope]

5. It was probably the US Govt. who payed him to do this. He has been living

in Germany for years and must have known the problem he'd be confronted with on returning to Afghanistan.
Makes you go hmmmm.


-------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[fujiyama]

14. And even if he was paid

which makes no sense whatsoever, (because it once again proves how nothing was accomplished in Afghanistan), why should this sort of religious intolerance be accepted as the norm in the Muslim world?

I am amazed by the hypocrisy by some so called liberals. We fight religious intolerance and fundamentalism at home and rightfully decry the likes of lunatics like Pat Robertson.

But if they do this kind of thing in Afghanistan or Pakistan, it's excused as a reaction to western imperalism or better yet it's another case of "black ops"? I'm trying to understand your reasoning.

[neweurope]

16. That's simple... I cannot understand why - with all the crimes in the

world, and, yes, it would be a crime to sentence this guy - the world press focuses on this one man. Amnesty International has a long, long list of similar cases. The world hardly cares. If I put effort into something then I'd rather do it for Amnesty or some organization like that. I'm suspicious of this, that's all. And it's already a fact that the man will go free.

At a time where the US government - and some European governments, mainly the British - try to trump up cases of "Christians are in danger", trying to set up Muslims as the new world enemy (before WW II the scapegoat were always the Jews, but that isn't practical anymore), I rather look elsewhere with my empathy.

I'm not a so-called liberal, by the way. I'm a good old German leftist.

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[megatherium]

17. I don't recall Jews (the former scapegoat) killing people

for apostasy. I do notice that antisemitism (hatred of Jews) is common in Muslim circles and countries. Countries/religions that sentence people to death for apostasy are not to be admired. True, they're not the new world enemy. But western concern about Ahmad Rahman's situation is not manufactured. No one has the right to suggest that my own empathy is misplaced, or is hypocritical. (I am as angry as you are about the Iraq war, and US conduct in that war; I believe we should leave immediately.)

I should mention that I'm an American liberal Christian gay man.

[neweurope]

18. Not for a minute did I mean to suggest that anybody's empathy

here were misplaced or hypocritical. I am highly suspicious of our governments' "concern", that is all :)

As far as I understand antisemitism has been running high in Muslim countries only since the state of Israel. That is the root of many a problem, and, no, I have no suggestions for a solution. Also in my opinion it has to be understood and respected that not all countries are on the same "level" we are. The wheel turns; while we were still sitting on trees there was a highly civilized area in Mesopotamia, and now we're far advanced and others are living in the middle ages.

Which is NOT supposed to say "so let them stone women or put people to death for apostasy or kill Indian wives with acid". But bad things are happening everywhere, we cannot fight them all and neither do we have the right to be sitting on a high moral horse, and I'm including my own country in this. For me, for instance, a death sentence is a death sentence, and while the USA do not put anybody to death for his religion they do for other reasons. Barbarous in my eyes. Let's get our own homes in order.

:hi:


--------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to the Hague!

[megatherium]

20. The US death penalty is barbarous. But the death penalty is used

on notorious murderers in the US, not religious apostates. (I oppose its use under all circumstances.)

But what makes the situation in Afghanistan news-worthy (more than the other horrors you mention) is the timing: it happened in a country that the US has ostensibly just liberated. The US dislodged the Taliban and supposedly installed a constitutional government that protects freedom of religion. But we find out that the constitution also provided for an independent judiciary, which is Islamic, so this situation comes up.

I don't think we should "respect and understand that they're not at the same 'level' as we are." One of the clerics in Afghanistan described Rahman as a "microbe." He's not entirely medieval given he is sophisticated enough to know the germ theory of disease. But we've heard this rhetoric before: The Nazis used it to describe the Jews. So the correct way of viewing this, I believe, is not medieval versus modern, it's totalitarianism vs. liberal democracy. Germany was the most advanced nation in Europe in 1930, on the eve of becoming the Nazi state that murdered millions of people. Islam, in the modern world, has become, in certain countries, a totalitarian ideology.

Our response to this should be clear: we should oppose it. Not militarily of course, which is ironic in this situation since the US is still militarily active in Afghanistan, battling the Taliban. Instead, we should apply moral and diplomatic pressure. That's of course what we did in this situation, and it appears to have succeeded in getting the poor fellow released.

Meanwhile, we can identify other horrors in the world and work to mitigate these. Whether it's the death penalty in the US or China, or the scourge of easily-treated but ignored diseases throughout the tropics, or the war in Iraq, or human rights abuses in the Muslim world -- we should all work on all of these.

[neweurope]

23. It's not as if didn't agree with you, and really on all points

(other than I see no difference WHY somebody is put to death, but then you say you oppose that, too). But we see quite clearly now what the Russians saw before us: Leave Afghanistan well enough alone. They'll come round; Coca Cola, TVs, mobile phones and automobiles have gotten to anybody so far. Afghanistan isn't ready yet. Period. The Americans always seem to think that if you change leadership somewhere the problem is solved. That's nonsensein most cases. After all society ALLOWED the previous leadership. Afghanistan is ruled by tribes, and the central government hardly has power beyond Kabul.

Thex have 0,2 doctors per 1.000 inhabitants; 165 babies per 1.000 births die; 820 mothers per 100.000 births die; 49 % of all children do not have enough to eat, 246 % of the children have to work; only 19 % of people in the cities and 11 % of the people in the country have access to clear drinking water:

Those problems, I think, have to be solved first. Much more than a "war on Christians" who are very few and far between in Afghanistan. This single individual deserved all the international help he could get, that's true; but I still wonder why all Western governments spoke out on his behalf. They certainly do NOT in most other cases. :(

If I remain quiet from now on it will be because my computer has a problem. :( Hope it can be solved soon.

-------------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[DoveTurnedHawk]

22. My Understanding

Is that this statement is, well, factually untrue:

As far as I understand antisemitism has been running high in Muslim countries only since the state of Israel.

DTH

[DoveTurnedHawk]

21. He Went Back for His Daughters

"Rahman’s ordeal began as a custody dispute over his two daughters, now 13 and 14. The girls had been living with their grandparents their whole lives but Rahman sought custody when he returned to Afghanistan in 2002 after living in Germany for nine years. A custody battle ensued and the matter was taken to police."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12063255/

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I have a great deal of respect for this man.

DTH

[Warpy]

6. I think the when and where of his conversion were germane

and the lack of evidence meant they couldn't prove it had happened within Afghanistan and when that law against conversion was in force.

He'll be lavished with all the goodies a fundy America can provide, although I do wonder if he'd choose to come HERE. My guess is that there are a lot of other places higher up on his list of places to relocate. We're right down there with Russia for obvious reasons.

My understanding is that his conversion came to light after 15 years because of friction with inlaws.

[MadMaddie]

8. Apparantly his wife turned him in.....

[stray cat]

12. His family had a beef and turned him in.

Its supposedly ok to live as a christian but not to convert. His family brought it to the governments attention that he used to be a muslim so he should die. What are families for?

[UTUSN]

7. Hey! This could be the loophole the illegal immigrants could use!

Oh, they're already Christians.

[LynnTheDem]

9. The BUSH FAMILY will adopt him.

[Charlie Brown]

10. I thought the point of this ordeal was his desire to stay in Afghanistan

I thought he was willing to become a martyr. Why is he changing his mind now?

[stray cat]

13. I suspect he isn't crazy about being stoned at any time.

Can't say that I blame him. I wonder if DU would be more sympathetic if he was a muslim who converted to atheism to was sentenced to die.

[BiggJawn]

15. I hope they get him out before the people kill him.

FWIW, I could give a shit if he was a Muslim who converted to Santeria or Ba'Hai, much less Atheism.

"Freedom on the March", my ass. So THIS is what our young people died for? A Government that stands by while the resurected remnants of the Government they supposedly REPLACED coinducts Business as Usual?

I can't decide who's Il Douche's bigger ass-lick now, Blair the Poodle or Karzai the Mayor of Kabul.

[daleo]

11. I thought he would probably be given refugee status in Canada or U.S.

All along. But it could be some other country. I figured this was how they would finesse the thing.

[Eugene]

19. BBC: Afghan convert 'must not escape'

Last Updated: Wednesday, 29 March 2006, 10:52 GMT 11:52 UK

Afghan convert 'must not escape'

Afghanistan's parliament has said a Christian who has just escaped a possible death sentence
for converting from Islam must not leave the country.

Italy is considering offering asylum to Abdul Rahman. The suggestion has outraged politicians
in Afghanistan.

<snip>

The Parliamentary Speaker Yunus Qanooni said "his leaving Afghanistan must be prohibited,"
the AFP news agency reports.

<snip>

Full article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4856748.stm