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Afghanistan
Karzai intervenes in Christian convert case
2006-03-26
President Hamid Karzai has personally intervened in the case of an Afghan man facing execution for converting to Christianity, a top official said Saturday, amid fierce criticism in the West.
Not that we've burned any embassies down, of course. We're not Islamic.
Karzai was consulting with various government organisations to resolve the matter as soon as possible, the senior government official said on condition of anonymity. “The president is personally working to resolve it peacefully. There is a way out of it,” he said. “I believe it’ll take one or two days.”
"Our country already looks stoopid enough. He's trying to limit the damage."
Rahman was arrested under Islamic Sharia law about two weeks ago after his parents went to the authorities, reportedly following a family dispute. Sharia law, on which the Afghan constitution is partly based, rules that a Muslim who converts from Islam should be put to death.
... which pretty well negates the concept of freedom of religion.
Posted by:Fred

#7  angruper

sadly we are in a two megafront war -- one against the military jihadi (call them islamofascists) and one against the islamic outreach and apologist (call it islamo subversion).

We are killing lots of jihadi in Iraq (many killed by Iraqi, some by other jihadi) and in Afghanistan and in other nations, it works in many different ways.

However, the war of subversion needs to be fought also. We have great allies in the apostates (ibn warraq, ali sina, wafa sultan, etc.) and we have great allies in some of the kafr scholars (Spenser, Bostom, etc.).

The key battleground is for the 'enlightened' western moslem mind (the rural afghans can keep their piety for several generations -- it doesn't matter that much). When the moderate muslims give up trying to reform Islam and publically repudiate it, it will hit the Islamic body like a strong right hook. Another path is if the Iranians overthrow the mularky and a huge part of the population renounces Islam. This would be more of a puch in the gut.
Posted by: mhw   2006-03-26 19:29  

#6  "The issue is whether Islam can be allowed to exist in the world." If this issue is forced in Afghanistan, what little has been gained there will be lost for many years to come. Has anyone reading Rantburg also read "Kara Kush"?
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2006-03-26 14:07  

#5  ZF, I think you're zoomed in way to tightly. The issue is whether Islam can be allowed to exist in the world. If they want to execute this guy, a lot of people in the west are going to conclude that it's them or us. And they aren't going to win that one in the end. Thin of this as the cartoons with a life at stake. They're cruisin' for a bruisin'.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2006-03-26 12:18  

#4  Globe and Mail article: Almost always, perched on the rocks and mounds just outside the gate, is a clutch of Afghan men, squatting comfortably for hours on end in the hot sun, and a gaggle of shy youngsters -- watching as the soldiers in the observation posts watch them. Visible not far away at any given time are farmers working the dry soil with bare hands or primitive instruments and lone figures slowly leading donkeys or goats through the fields.

And as is common in rural Afghanistan, and this is a country where 80 per cent of the people live not in towns but on the land, burqa-clad women are almost never to be seen. They scurry away, hands pulling voluminous cloth even tighter, if there's a Western man within miles. The mice back at the Green Beans café are bolder.

Before the Gombad base was overrun with soldiers for the big Sola Kowal operation, the place belonged utterly to the men of 1 Platoon. Cpl. Sinclair remembers those quiet early days with fondness, particularly the pleasure of hearing, just before dawn, the muezzin making the first of five daily calls to prayer for the faithful.

First, Cpl. Sinclair said, there was the distinct click of the muezzin -- like many now, he uses a loudspeaker -- flipping on the power switch. Then came the raspy cough as he flicked a finger once or twice on his microphone, to see that it was working. And then the sound of the muezzin's sing-song voice, echoing as the sun rose in pinks and yellows over the Gombad Valley.

Most Afghans don't have much. They eke out a living on marginal land. But they have their faith. If you tell them that they cannot practice their faith as they see fit in their own land - that they cannot kill a native apostate when (in David Warren's words) Islam holds it is wrong not to kill him, there could be trouble. I hope I am wrong. But if trouble breaks out, and the body count starts piling up, we will see that this case was closer to the Sepoy Revolt than Sir Napier's banning of widow-burning. Note that Afghanistan, unlike the British Raj, is a nation of riflemen. It was a nation of riflemen when Afghan troops mauled the British and when Afghan irregulars mauled the Soviets and it is a nation of riflemen today. It is also a landlocked nation surrounded by Muslim countries (and China) whose airspace we must pass through to resupply our people.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2006-03-26 12:05  

#3  Karzai may realize that if a judiciary can kill someone for becoming Christian, it is only a small step to killing someone for going from Shia to Sunni or from Sunni salafist to sunni sufi or for having a koran with an image or for all kinds of things.

On the other hand the 'death to apostates' is, essentially the Berlin Wall of Islam that keeps muslims trapped. If this wall goes down, Islam becomes a shadow.
Posted by: mhw   2006-03-26 09:24  

#2  ZF: Where are you going to get the divisions to make the US troops that get rotated through Afghanistan re-enlist in the future if the government they're supporting is killing people for sharing the religion of most of them?
Posted by: Phil   2006-03-26 00:51  

#1  I sure hope it's not Karzai's head in exchange for this apostate. Afghanistan is a really poor country - you've got to figure that for many of them, the highlight of their week is a visit to the mosque on Friday. If Afghans as a whole start to think we're trying to subvert their religion, we might need a few more divisions in-country.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2006-03-26 00:32  

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