Abdul Rahman: Marked for death

In Afghanistan at Friday Prayers, Muslim clerics prayed for murder (via NYTimes):

Afghan clerics used Friday Prayers at mosques across the capital to call for death for an Afghan man who converted to Christianity, despite widespread protest in the West.

As the international pressure on Afghanistan grew, the clerics demanded the execution of the Afghan, Abdul Rahman 41, if he does not convert back to Islam. His conversion 15 years ago was brought to the attention of Afghan authorities as part of a child custody dispute…

…One speaker, Mawlavi Habibullah, told more than a thousand clerics and young people who had gathered in Kabul that “Afghanistan does not have any obligation under international laws.

“The prophet says when somebody changes religion, he must be killed” he said.

Keep an eye out for developments tomorrow:

An Afghan Christian facing possible execution for converting from Islam was likely to be released from jail “soon,” a senior government official said following huge Western pressure over the case.

“He is likely to be released soon,” the official said, adding there would be a top-level meeting on the matter Saturday.

Outcry rises:

Growing international pressure on Afghanistan to respect the religious freedom of a Christian convert was met in Afghanistan on Friday by calls for the man to be executed for denying Islam.

The controversy over Abdur Rahman, 40, whose trial is due to begin next week, threatens to drive a wedge between Afghanistan and Western countries that are ensuring its security and bankrolling its development.

But President Hamid Karzai cannot ignore conservative proponents of Islamic law or appear to bow too readily to outside pressure.

Religious and political figures meeting at a Kabul hotel, including former prime minister Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai and Shi’ite cleric Asif Mohsenia who commanded anti-Soviet forces in the 1980s, said the government should ensure that Islamic law is enforced.

It said if its demands were ignored, “the Muslim people of Afghanistan would consider struggle their legal and religious duty.”

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of The Counterterrorism Blog, one of many bloggers I was honored to meet at the Abdul Rahman rally this afternoon, writes:

This case makes clear that the threat to converts out of Islam does not just come from the state, but from private citizens as well. And it makes clear that the belief that apostates deserve death is not an aberration, but is more widespread that many would like to acknowledge. The resolution of this case may well be a barometer of Afghanistan’s future, and the future of democracy in the Middle East.

Nina Shea: The problem is Sharia.

Washington Times columnist Diana West, another attendee whom I was honored to meet today, has an excellent column on masking terror that begins:

Q: What’s worse than Afghanistan’s barbaric prosecution of Abdul Rahman for the Islamic crime of converting to Christianity? A: The muffled US. reaction.

Rally reports, pics, and video from Mary Katherine Ham, Age of Hooper, Jeff Harrell, Tom Bridge, Are We Lumberjacks?

You will not be surprised to learn that there were no members of Christian Peacemaker Teams there today. (Mike’s Noise has a challenge for CPT.)

Thanks to all who did come to show their support for Abdul Rahman.

Keep praying for his life.

***

Eugene Volokh:

The striking thing about the Abdul Rahman prosecution — in which an Afghanistan court is considering whether to execute Rahman because he converted from Islam to Christianity — is how Establishment the prosecution is. The case is before an official Afghani court. The death sentence is, to my knowlege, authorized by official Afghani law. The New York Times reports that the prosecutor, an Afghan government official, “called Mr. Rahman ‘a microbe’ who ’should be killed.’” The case is in a country which is close to the West, and is presumably under at least some special influence from Western principles (whether as a matter of conviction or of governmental self-interest).

We’re not talking about some rogue terrorist group, or even the government of Iran, which is deliberately and strongly oppositional to the West. We’re talking about a country that we’re trying to set up as something of a model of democracy and liberty for the Islamic world. And yet the legal system is apparently seriously considering executing someone for nothing more than changing his religion.

This is telling evidence, it seems to me, that there is something very wrong in Islam today, and not just in some lunatic terrorist fringe…

Read the rest.

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