March 23, 2006

An avalanche of media coverage of an Afghan man facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity has apparently sparked the arrest and deepening harassment of other Afghan Christians in the ultra-conservative Muslim country.

Authorities arrested Abdul Rahman, 41, last month for apostasy, a capital offense under strict Islamic laws still in place in Afghanistan, which four years ago was wrested from the Taliban regime’s hard-line Islamist control.

During the past few days, Compass has confirmed the arrest of two other Afghan Christians elsewhere in the country. Because of the sensitive situation, local sources requested that the location of the jailed converts be withheld.

This past weekend, one young Afghan convert to Christianity was beaten severely outside his home by a group of six men, who finally knocked him unconscious with a hard blow to his temple. He woke up in the hospital two hours later but was discharged before morning.

“Our brother remains steadfast, despite the ostracism and beatings,” one of his friends said.

Several other Afghan Christians have been subjected to police raids on their homes and places of work in the past month, as well as to telephone threats.

First Known Apostasy Case

Rahman was put on trial in Kabul last week for the “crime” of converting from Islam to Christianity and faces the death penalty for refusing to return to the Muslim faith.

But news of his case did not break until March 16, when Ariana TV announced it. According to the TV newscaster, Rahman was asked in court, “Do you confess that you have apostacized from Islam?” The defendant answered, “No, I am not an apostate. I believe in God.”

He was then questioned, “Do you believe in the Quran?” Rahman responded, “I believe in the New Testament, and I love Jesus Christ.”

Although Islamist militants have captured and murdered at least five Afghan Christians in the past two years for abandoning Islam, Rahman’s case is the local judiciary’s first known prosecution case for apostasy in recent decades.

During Rahman’s initial hearing before the head judge of Kabul’s Primary Court, he testified that he had become a Christian 16 years ago, while working with a Christian relief organization in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, near the Afghan border.

But after his conversion, Rahman’s wife divorced him, so their two infant daughters were taken back to Afghanistan, where they have been raised by their paternal grandparents.

Soon afterwards Rahman left Pakistan, and over the next few years he managed to enter several European countries. Although he attempted to apply for asylum, he was never able to obtain legal immigration status. After nine years, many of them in European detention centers because he had no valid papers, he was finally deported back to Afghanistan in 2002.