penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity.
Under international pressure Abdul Rahman, 41, was released from prison Monday, March 27 and immediately moved to a secret location as Muslim clerics urged Afghans to "cut him into pieces."
In a statement Tuesday, March 28, Italy’s Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said he would ask the cabinet for permission to grant him asylum.
The announcement came after the United Nations reportedly said it was trying to find a country willing to take him in. An Afghan court dismissed the case against Rahman Sunday, March 26, after several Western leaders, including United States President George W. Bush and Pope Benedict XVI demanded his release.
ARRANGEMENTS MADE
In published remarks, Tuesday, March 28, Afghanistan’s deputy attorney general Mohammad Eshaq Aloko confirmed prosecutors had issued a letter seeking Rahman’s release from prison. Aloko said questions were raised regarding Rahman’s mental fitness to stand trial.
The United States Embassy in Kabul welcomed the release and said arrangements regarding Rahman’s welfare were being handled privately. Moving him out of the country remains a challenge for Western diplomats as influential Muslim clerics have called for massive nationwide protests.
On Monday, March 27, hundreds of people joined demonstrations in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Protesters reportedly called for Rahman’s execution, shouted anti-Western slogans, and accused Afghan President Hamid Karzai of caving in to international and Christian demands.
CONFESSING CHRIST
Despite protests and facing possible execution under Afghanistan’s strict Muslim laws, Rahman confessed abandoning Islam for Christianity during his trial, which began March 16.
Rahman said he became a Christian 16 years ago at age 25 while working as a medical aid worker for Afghan refugees in neighboring Pakistan.
After being an aid worker for four years there, he moved to Germany for nine years. Rahman returned to Afghanistan in 2002 and tried to gain custody of his two teenage daughters who had been living with their grandparents.
CUSTODY BATTLE
A custody battle ensued and the matter was taken to the police. During questioning, it emerged that Rahman was a Christian and carrying a Bible, and he was immediately arrested, his family said.
In an interview published Sunday, March 26, in an Italian newspaper, Rahman defended his choice to become a Christian and stressed he is ready to die for it.
"I am serene. I have full awareness of what I have chosen. If I must die, I will die," Rahman told the Rome daily La Repubblica, apparently denying that he was mentally ill.
"EVERLASTING LIFE"
"Somebody, a long time ago, did it for all of us," he added, in a clear reference to Jesus, who Christians say was "God’s only begotten Son." According to the Bible Jesus died at a cross for all sins of mankind before resurrecting on the third day, so that every person believing in Him "has everlasting life."
Religious rights workers say Rahman has become a voice for former Muslims who converted to Christianity. Barnabas Fund and other groups are concerned about Christians in a similar situation in Afghanistan as well as other Muslim nations such as Iran.
Church sources claim there have been violent incidents against the Christian community. Besides Rahman at least two other Afghan Christians, whose names were not released, were arrested in recent days, apparently on similar charges.
CHRISTIAN MISTREATED
In addition one young Afghan convert to Christianity was reportedly beaten last week weekend outside his home by a group of six men, who finally knocked him unconscious with a hard blow to his temple, before he woke up in the hospital two hours later. While these reports have not been confirmed independently, diplomats have suggested they are concerned about growing religious hostilties in the predominalty Muslim nation.
99 percent of Afghanistan’s 28 million people are Muslim, while the rest are mainly Hindus, according to official estimates.
Among the tiny Christian minority few admit their faith because of fear of retribution and there are no known Afghan churches, church obesrvers say. Only an old house in a war-wrecked suburb of Kabul serves as a Christian place of worship for expatriates, reporters say. (With BosNewsLife Research, BosNewsLife News Center Monitoring, and reports from Afghanistan and Italy).
