Pressure Mounts To Free Afghan Convert
American Christian anger continued to mount Friday against the U.S.-installed and funded government of Afghanistan, which has put a man on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity.
Christian lobby groups are urging President George W. Bush to do more to save Abdul Rahman, a 41-year-old former medical aid worker who faces the death penalty under Afghanistan's Islamic laws for becoming a Christian.
Rahman's trial, which started last week, has fired passions in conservative Muslim Afghanistan and highlighted a conflict of values between Afghanistan and its Western backers — notably American Christians who cheered the Bush administration when it toppled the oppressive Taliban regime.
The chief judge trying the man defended the court's autonomy Friday amid reports the man could be freed.
"That there should even be such a trial is an outrage. How can we congratulate ourselves for liberating Afghanistan from the rule of jihadists only to be ruled by radical Islamists who kill Christians?" Family Research Council president Tony Perkins said in a statement.
"Americans have not given their lives so that Christians can be put to death," he said.
Such sentiments are spreading through Christian radio stations, Web sites and blogs, stoked by traditional conservative media such as National Review magazine.
National Review Online quoted Chuck Colson, a former Nixon White House official who is now a Christian preacher, as saying:
"I have supported the Bush administration's foreign policy because I came to believe that the best way to stop Islamo-fascism was by promoting democracy," Colson said. "But if we can't guarantee fundamental religious freedoms in the countries where we establish democratic reforms, then the whole credibility of our foreign policy is thrown into serious question."
If Rahman is executed, political experts agree, Bush will have alienated his most loyal core constituency — Christian conservatives.
"The Bush administration simply cannot let this happen. They have to stop this one way or the other. It would make a mockery of much of what President Bush has said about our creation of a new democracy in Afghanistan," said Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia, a keen analyst of American politics.
"It splits his base, and it will be endless trouble for him if it goes forward, and I'm sure he won't let it happen," Sabato said.
Bush expressed alarm about the case this week, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday, seeking a "favorable resolution" of the Rahman case.
Diplomats have said the Afghan government is searching for a way to drop the case. On Wednesday, authorities said Rahman was suspected of being mentally ill and would undergo psychological examinations to see whether he is fit to stand trial.
Christian activists have had influence over particular Bush foreign policy issues which they see as morally pivotal.
Religious lobbyists have focused on global trafficking in refugees, especially sex slaves; tried to pacify a two-decade war in Sudan between the Muslim government in the north and Christian and animist groups in the south; and have tried to crack North Korea's isolation by sending aid to covert Christian groups and smuggling out refugees.
The largest Protestant denomination in America, the usually conservative Southern Baptists, has mobilized on the Rahman case.
"The American people are not sending their young men and women to Afghanistan for this definition of freedom," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. "Mr. Rahman should be released immediately."
Also, the American Family Association has organized an Internet campaign to e-mail Bush and ask him to "intervene to save the life of Abdul Rahman."
The Compass Direct News Agency, a group that monitors the persecutions of Christians worldwide, reported this week that two more Afghan Christians have been arrested and said more are being beaten and harassed by Afghans riled over the Rahman case.
"How this gets handled will determine much about our dream, of having democracy in an Islamic country, reinforcing one another," said Robert Seiple, who was a U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom from 1998 to 2000.
"It brings to mind all the potential cases that may arise there and in Iraq, in the future — which takes it to a whole new level," added Seiple, who is now president of the Council for America's First Freedom, an independent group promoting religious freedoms.