Middle East Democracies Must Protect Religious Freedom

We have sacrificed money and lives to bring democracy to Afghanistan. Why is a Christian under threat for converting from Islam?

BY: Charles Colson

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Reprinted with permission from Breakpoint.

Since October 2001, approximately three hundred Americans have been killed and another eight hundred have been wounded in Afghanistan. The overthrow of the Taliban was about more than denying a base of operations to al Qaeda--it was also about liberating the people of Afghanistan from a brutal theocracy.

All of this makes recent news from Kabul all the more ironic--and outrageous.

Abdul Rahman is facing death in Kabul. His crime? Converting to Christianity.

According to reports, Rahman converted to Christianity sixteen years ago while working for a Christian group that helped Afghan refugees in Peshawar, Pakistan. When he returned to Afghanistan in 2002, he tried to regain custody of his daughters from his parents. They referred the matter to the police, and his conversion came to the attention of Afghani authorities.

While the Taliban no longer rules the country, conversion from Islam to another religion, called apostasy, is still punishable by death. The prosecutor offered to drop the charges if Rahman converted back to Islam, but Rahman refused. The Afghan courts did dismiss the case. But as he sits in a concrete cell, some Muslim clerics have threatened to incite Afghans to kill Rahman if he is released. According to the prosecutor, Rahman “said he was a Christian and would always remain one.”

That fidelity could cost Rahman his life if clerics, who have decided that his “attack on Islam” meets the requirements of apostasy, push Afghans to kill him.

The irony is inescapable: This is the country that we rid of the Taliban because of its religious oppression. This is the country in which we have spent at least $70 billion to establish a free democratic government. This is the country whose freedom cost us three hundred American lives and eight hundred casualties. And this is the country that is preparing to execute a man for becoming a Christian after he witnessed other Christians caring for his countrymen.

Continued on page 2: Is this why we have shed American blood and invested American treasure? »