Afghan Rights Fall Short for Christian Converts

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Afghan Rights Fall Short for Christian Converts

KABUL, Afghanistan — The jail commander had remained silent as the prisoner, Sayed Mussa, told a reporter about his journey from Islam to Christianity: his secret baptism nine years earlier, his faith in Jesus Christ and the promise of heaven.
Afghan fears of proselytizing have been brought on by the influx of foreigners since the U.S.-led invasion. Demonstrators protested against Christian organizations in Mazar-i-Sharif in June 2010.
But when Mr. Mussa said he believed in the Bible but also loved the Koran’s teachings, it was too much. “So you love the Koran and the Bible?” the commander broke in incredulously. “What kind of love is this?”

A guard thumbing Muslim prayer beads squared his shoulders and started to rise. “You want me to beat him?” he asked.

“No, no,” the commander said, calming himself and waving off the guard. “Everyone has the right to express themselves.”

Such has been Mr. Mussa’s life since his arrest for converting to Christianity nine months ago in a case that illustrates the contradictions — and limits — of religious freedom in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s Constitution, established in 2004, guarantees that people are “free to exercise their faith.” But it also leaves it open for the courts to rely on Shariah, or Islamic law, on issues like conversion. Under some interpretations of Shariah, leaving Islam is considered apostasy, an offense punishable by hanging.

Mr. Mussa, 46, is staring at the prospect of a death sentence.

Mr. Mussa was arrested after a television station in Kabul broadcast images that it claimed showed Westerners baptizing Afghans and other Afghans praying at private Christian meetings. The broadcast stoked fears of proselytizing brought on by the influx of foreigners since the American-led invasion in 2001. Some lawmakers publicly declared that converts should die.

Since his arrest, Mr. Mussa said, guards at one jail slapped him and beat him with sticks. At another, two prisoners who learned of the charges against him assaulted and raped him, urged on by Taliban inmates.

www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/asia/06mussa.html


Nato sides with jailed Afghan Christian convert

"Let me stress that a sentence to death or any punishment for converting from one religion to the another is in strong contradiction with everything Nato stands for," Mr Rasmussen said.

"Nato is based on the principles of human rights, rule of law, freedom, democracy," he said at his monthly news conference.

Musa Sayed, an Afghan who works for the International Committee of the Red Cross, was among two men arrested in May on apostasy charges and has languished in a Kabul jail as his case drags on

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8309514/Nato-sides-with-jailed-Afghan-Christian-convert.html