According to the AP:
An Afghan man who had faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity quickly vanished Tuesday after he was released from prison, apparently out of fear for his life with Muslim clerics still demanding his death.
Second good move:
Italy’s Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said he would ask his government to grant Abdul Rahman asylum. Fini was among the first to speak out on the man’s behalf.
And then there’s this:
Deputy Attorney-General Mohammed Eshak Aloko said prosecutors had issued a letter calling for Rahman’s release because “he was mentally unfit to stand trial.” He also said he did not know where Rahman had gone after being released.He said Rahman may be sent overseas for medical treatment.
“It is so if you think so,” said Luigi Pirandello. Hey, come to think of it, Rahman may be headed for Italy – the land of the great Pirandello himself.
More HERE. (ht: markus)
Richard Cohen has a very good column on this matter in today’s Washington Post.
It is just too bad he is unable to remain in Afghanistan if he so desires, to be allowed to move around and worship freely as he pleases.
It seems that this case may have sparked an interest in Christianity amongst some Afghans . . .
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=%5CForeignBureaus%5Carchive%5C200603%5CFOR20060327c.html
Roger:
This should be a wake up call for the multi-culti crowd. The denial of the fact that there is a large portion of the Muslim world that is comfortable with the notion that any Muslim that converts to another form of belief,even atheism, is a valid candidate for death. There is a large difference between orthodox Judaism, Christianity, and the Orthodox Muslim faith. NOT ALL MUSLIMS. But a large enough number especially when you consider the power that they yield. Are there nutter Christians? You bet. The “God hates fags” creep is a fine example. But he is a pariah within the Orthodox Christian community. Other then his little band of followers he has no influence on the Christian world. Robertson was forced to apologize for his verbal diahrea regarding Sharon and Chavez because he got ripped from numerous conservative Christian voices. The blogs and radio shows that feature orthodox Christian voices tore into him. It wasn’t the attacks by the MSM that got him to back down. He loves getting attacked from that section of the west. It was his own that community that shamed him into apologizing. The Muslim community can’t say the same thing. The silence from the major leaders in the Middle East on this issue is an indication of what they think. If this poor man had been hung from in the public square there would have been no violent outbursts or even a simple candlelight vigil. Many major players in the Muslim faith have no problem with this horrid notion. There are many fine Muslim voices calling for some sort of reform in the Muslim faith. But there main audience is non-Muslims and they have to live in fear of execution. They can speak freely in the non-Muslim world but they have little to no influence in their own lands. This is not to say that the Muslim faith is incapable of reform. They could. But there is little to no signs that this is going to happen soon. I have no fear of 99.9% of American Muslims. They just want to practice their faith within the confines of western law and they are valuable members of our country. But they need to step up and they need to lead the effort to change the attitudes of the governments of their homelands. They may fail. But they need to try. And blaming it on American hegemony or AIPAC or Israel is a poor excuse.
Lola’s “It is just too bad he is unable to remain in Afghanistan” is a soft step on the road to dhimmitude. Islamic law aka Sharia requires death to ALL Muslims who leave the fold, and Afghanistan is an “Islamic democracy”, an oxymoron. So it isn’t “Too bad”, it’s rotten and reprehensible and Islamic. Transporting all apostates to countries of tolerance is not a practical answer, either. The fatwas will take care of poor Mr Rahman before he gets to Italy, or after.
Good idea that the fellow “disappears”: otherwise his family/tribe would tear him apart, thus satisfying Allah and Family Honour.
I seem to remember that he had asked for asylum in some Euro country, but had been refused, and therefore had gone “home” to Afghanistan.
It is well to notice the chasm that exists between the Tribe and the City. We are in a time when ignoring this means we will share the fate of the Dodo bird
Dhimmitude is when you, as a Christian, are not allowed to practice their faith freely, including educating people who express an interest about Christianity in the open, without harassment from others who may take so kindly to this.
Mr. Rahman should be able to do what he wants, without being treated as a second class citizen, simply because he choose to be a Christian, in Afghanistan. It’s truly unfortunate that he was not accorded this privilege.
Believe me, we Orthodox Christians know very well about dhimmitude – look what happened to the Greeks who suffered under the yokes of the Ottoman Empire and the Arab Christians, who were forced to practice their faith quietly, and to flee the Middle East as soon as they could, thus ensuring that the birthplace of Christ would be populated with the Muslims in the majority. If you want to know what it looks like nowdays, you should take a good look at Kosovo. Lots of Christian churches and cemeteries have been desecrated.
You’ll be surprised at the numbers of secret Christians in the Middle East . . . they do exist, but we do not know how many there are, for obvious reasons.
“Dhimmitude is when you, as a Christian, are not allowed to practice their faith freely, including educating people who express an interest about Christianity in the open, without harassment from others who may take so kindly to this.” should be corrected to:
Dhimmitude is when you, as a Christian, are not allowed to practice their faith freely, including educating people who express an interest about Christianity in the open, without harassment from others who may not take so kindly to this.
I’m pretty impressed by Cohen’s essay, particularly the gist of it: “the horror…is this my fellow man?” I am as unsympathetic to leftwing multiculturalism in this case as I am to it when it is used to justify female genital mutiliation.
Still, thinking further, is proscribing the death penalty for apostasy an affrount to universal values, to NATURAL LAW, as it were; or is it simply an affront to Western values, or more precisely, to post-Enlightenment Western values?
I’m pretty sure that the penalty in Europe for apostasy from Christianity was also death until, the 14th or 15th Century. Thus, we can offically peg Islamic civilization as at least 600 years behind the eight ball.
Given this, what are the barriers to an Islamic reformation, and what can we in the West do to encourage the process? (My suggestion: invasions of pornography, pop music, birth control and other baubles of materialism might work better than military invasions.)
My other problem w/ Cohen. Though I share his anger that the Muslim silent majority is largely silent about this outrage; in the real world, I’d settle for their silence in this instance if they would also be willing to remain silently tolerant of Danish cartoonists, Salman Rushdie, and other free thinkers.
Markus:
Your suggestion of “popmusic, pornography, birth control,” ect, ect, ect is one of the main talking points that the Islamo fascist Muslims point to as a reason to join their sick crusade and unfortunetly this has been a very popular talking point among a bulk of the population of the area. Many of the 9-11 bombers pointed to these factors as part of the reason they joined the jihad.
The most important message we need to send to the Islamo fascists is that they don’t have the right to kill people who may prefer your laundrey list of hobbies.”pornography is the answer” is a bad sell. Individual liberty is the message to send.
Kevin — I was just thinkin’ out loud on that one. I’m interested in the possible correlation, though, between sexual repression on the one hand, and intolerance and violence on the other.
Here is an interesting Ian Buruma essay on this question: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1717676,00.html#article_continue
Markus:
I think we should stick to first principles. There are various studies on the negative aspects of pornography that a government could point to that would counter that argument. If we sell the principle that every human has the right to a free mind, not as a anarchisitic principle to justify every action but to allow freedom of speech, thought and association. We would be on firmer ground. Pop music, pornography ect will follow within reasonable mutually agreed upon standards.And every country will have different community standards. The problem in the Middle East is not the lack of materials to jack off too.I wasn’t trying to scold you or anyone else and I am sure that you are not some porn addict. It is the fact that the religous and political leaders in the region think they have the right to kill anyone who does not submit to their will.And that they carry out their beliefs. Start with the basics. Everything else will work itself out from there.
Italian politics is discussed at the Joy of Knitting blog. Her English is so flawless and idiomatic, I thought she was an expatriate.
I posted on her ideas re the coming elections but you should read her own original post:
The Joy Of Knitting
Scroll down to March 27th…the incident with the Communist thugs is pretty grim, but she has a ray of hope at the end. Meanwhile, Italians are moving their money out of country in preparation for the Comm. takeover.
And here we have a prime example of what Jefferson warned about. People will not appreciate, protect and respect freedom, unless they have earned it, at least not for a generation or so. We, as a society, should not be surprised that Afgansitan and Iraq, after being freed of authoritarian control, choose to leap right back into such control. Their entire set of life experiences have left them imprinted toward a particular mindset. In the case of Muslims, their entire life, history and belief system have created a reality-tunnel that “Operation Call It What You Will FREEDOM” simply cannot fix. It can “break open the head” to steal a phrase from shamanic systems, it can provide the environment and kindling to begin the blaze of liberty, but its not overnight, or even over a couple years.
Afganistan may, in a generation or two appear much more like a society fit for the 21st century (at least the 21st century according to western principles)… or, it may revert back to totalitarian despotism. The same is true for Iraq and any other nation in the world.
We can lead the hoards to freedom, but we can’t make them think.
I’m interested in the possible correlation, though, between sexual repression on the one hand, and intolerance and violence on the other.
Define sexual repression. I have heard stories about the prostitutes of Egypt, sodomy is well known in Afghanistan, etc., etc. OTOH, I do think it takes a good deal of violence to actually *suppress* sexuality. So I don’t think violence is a result of sexual suppression, I think it is a neccessary means to enforce sexual suppression.
I’m pretty impressed by Cohen’s essay, particularly the gist of it: “the horror…is this my fellow man?” I am as unsympathetic to leftwing multiculturalism in this case as I am to it when it is used to justify female genital mutiliation.—Markus
Yeah,I read Cohen’s piece and found it very useful as well. He surpassed himself with this effort. It really is about time that we stopped ‘apologising’ for a value system that I think is truly ‘objectively’ superior, and started to explain that we really do find certain(well frankly virtually ALL), aspects of some cultures to be unsupportable. The craven morally bankrupt form of ‘multiculturalism that you rightly deride has served us poorly in the past, and is now frankly life-threatening.
As to whether our current values are ‘Natural law’ or merely a ‘preference’, I really can’t say. Even if they are but a ‘preference’, I find them so much more ‘preferable’ to the demonstrated alternative that I am not overly worried by the potential moral quagmire. Killing for apostasy is an obscenity. It may not have been in 1500, but let’s be honest — they were remarkably STUPID people on the whole back then. Progression is allowed. Well maybe not for Muslims but that as you point out is exactly the problem.
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”— Oldie but Goldie from the Raj.