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Afghanistan
SK: Ex-hostages say Taliban beat them for refusing to convert
2007-09-03
SEOUL (AFP) — Some of the South Korean Christian aid workers held hostage by Afghanistan's Taliban said they were beaten for refusing to convert to Islam and protecting female captives, a hospital chief said Monday.

"We found through medical checks that some male hostages were beaten," Cha Seung-Gyun told reporters after the 19 freed aid workers -- 14 women and five men -- underwent examinations at a hospital outside Seoul.

They had returned home Sunday after six weeks in captivity. "They said they were beaten at first for refusing to take part in Islamic prayers or for rejecting a demand to convert," Cha said.

The disclosure was likely to increase public sympathy for the ex-hostages, mostly in their 20s and 30s, following increasing criticism of what was seen as a reckless trip to a war-torn devoutly Islamic nation.

President Roh Moo-Hyun on Monday ordered that the former captives repay some of the costs of their rescue, which followed a deal between South Korean government negotiators in Afghanistan and the hardline Islamic insurgents.

The hospital chief said two male hostages, Je Chang-Hee and Song Byung-Woo, were beaten or threatened with death whey they refused to move out of a dugout shelter and leave some of their female colleagues behind.

But Cha said medical checks on the women showed no signs of rape, and they did not report having been sexually assaulted.
Posted by:mrp

#10  CrazyFool, as with many others, also hits the nailhead. RECIPROCITY needs to be the one single non-negotiable feature of dealing with Muslim majority nations. No immigration in? Then no immigration out. No freedom of religion? Then no mosques in foreign countries.

Reciprocity is so counter to the Muslim sense of entitlement that this one aspect alone could be used as a central lever to overturn Islamic superiority or expose it for the outright fraud that it is.
Posted by: Zenster   2007-09-03 23:50  

#9  Thank you for expanding on that thought, Zenster. mrp, I suspect the Taliban would be just as happy killing one of their converts if he failed to toe the line on any one of their picayune rules. But I agree about the propaganda point. I keep forgetting about that.

CrazyFool, you're right about the conversions. Both Sunni and Shia clerics have been openly worried about the conversion rate for the last few years that I'm aware of; I've seen unsubstantiated claims of numbers in the millions over some recent period. We've had articles here about situations in various Muslim countries, and certainly in the West there seems to be a division between those quietly falling away (like occasional poster Apostate) or those openly converting (that poor woman in Australia whose rapist justified the action on the grounds of her apostasy, no doubt justifying his mercy on the grounds that he let her live), and those becoming more violent in their beliefs.
Posted by: trailing wife   2007-09-03 23:19  

#8  We don't have to convert them by force. Simply give them freedom of religion where anyone can practice their religion and evangelize and convert others to their religion (as long as its not by force).

I think there is a very good reason Islamic countries outlaw evangelism by Christians or Jews (or athiest for that matter) - often under pain of death. Allan simply cannot compete.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2007-09-03 22:39  

#7  "They said they were beaten at first for refusing to take part in Islamic prayers or for rejecting a demand to convert,"

So, folks, let's all remember, "THERE IS NO COMPULSION IN RELIGION!"

Got that? Recall all the riots over Benedict's quoting of this?

Excal, I think trailing wife has a valid point, especially so with respect to Islam and its practices of kitman and taqiyya. Forced conversions would almost assure some wolves in sheep's clothing.

Far better is to simply execute the top tiers of Islam's clerical aristocracy wherever we go so that Muslims have the newfound freedom to convert without a flurry of death fatwas. Any imam or maulvi meddlesome enough to issue one gets a free .50 caliber third eye whilst we go about this bothersome task. Nation by nation, we must prune away these parasitic beturbanned strangler vines whose edicts and authoritarian rule keep Muslims chained to their creed. Given the opportunity to escape, any who remain are declared the enemy and treated as such.
Posted by: Zenster   2007-09-03 22:26  

#6  Not if the Taliban had done the converting, TW. They are firmly in the "you love life, we love death" camp. Forced conversions, like that of Steve Centanni in Gaza, are propaganda triumphs aimed at the radical Islamic base.
Posted by: mrp   2007-09-03 22:01  

#5  We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert their populations to Christianity.

Forced conversions are just about the best way to destroy a religion that I can think of, short of genocide. One can never trust those who accepted conversion to be honest, you see, and in the end the people separate into Old Blood and New, the authorities institute Inquisitions to ferret out the fakes, and heresies -- developed by converts who didn't quite grasp the subtle details of their new faith, and by false converts sabotaging their new masters -- flourish.

Separately, there is no way of knowing that conversion, however false, would have saved the two who were murdered. The Taliban are takfiri, and happily kill those who stray even the slightest from their defined way of doing things.
Posted by: trailing wife   2007-09-03 21:07  

#4  True. And only the Taliban have the real story on why they shot the pastor and his associate. If those two had converted, they would still be alive.
Posted by: mrp   2007-09-03 18:34  

#3  We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert their populations to Christianity.
Posted by: Excalibur   2007-09-03 18:33  

#2  This story has me torn. Getting captured while trying to spread the Gospel in these countries puts Western Nations in a tough spot. However, if they actually succeeded in flipping some folks to Christianity -- on top of exhibiting this kind of bravery when captured...
Posted by: Heriberto Spating7753   2007-09-03 17:53  

#1  Not at all the excursion they expected, poor things. A tribute to their strength that they didn't take the easy path.
Posted by: trailing wife   2007-09-03 17:49  

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