March 21, 2006
Despite the overthrow of the fundamentalist Taliban government and the presence of 22,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a man who converted to Christianity is being prosecuted in Kabul, and a judge said Sunday that if convicted, he faces the death penalty.Abdul Rahman, who is in his 40s, says he converted to Christianity 16 years ago while working as an aid worker helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
Relatives denounced him as a convert during a custody battle over his children, and he was arrested last month. The prosecutor says Rahman was found with a Bible.
So Afghans are willing to take our economic aid to develop their battered infrastructure, our medicines to cure their ills, our EOD teams to clear their mines, and our soldiers to hold the Taliban at bay, and yet they are willing to kill a man because he has taken to heart another contribution from us in Christianity.
The "tolerant" judge hopes for a peaceful resolution:
"We will ask him if he has changed his mind about being a Christian," Mawlazezadah says. "If he has, we will forgive him, because Islam is a religion of tolerance."
Afghan is a country with its own laws, and we cannot force them to accept converts to other religions when the most extreme interpretations of their law supposes they have legal "right" to kill Abdul Rahman.
They, however, do not have any claim to economic or military aid from civilized nations. We have no moral obligation to support a government that would allow Abdul Rahman to be killed. It goes without saying that were we to withdraw our support, the "tolerant" judge himself might meet a judgement of his own at the hands of the remaining elements of the Taliban.
Judge Mawlazezadah should be introduced to an American phrase attributed to Ben Franklin at the signing of our Declaration of Independence:
We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
The neck Judge Mawlazezadah saves may be his own.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
01:05 AM
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Posted by: Faithful Patriot at March 21, 2006 08:05 AM (y67bA)
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