received asylum, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi confirmed Wednesday, March 29.
Berlusconi said 41-year old Abdul Rahman "is already in Italy" and "being looked after by the interior ministry." The prime minister suggested that Rahman was flown from Afghanistan to Italy late Tuesday, March 28, saying "I think he arrived overnight."
He refused to give more details about the whereabouts of Rahman, where Muslim clerics have threatened to kill and "cut im into pieces" him following his released from jail.
Rahman was set free after Western leaders including United States President George W. Bush and Pope Benedict XVI urged Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai to respect freedom of religion. The United Nations said earlier it was looking to find a country to take him.
His arrival in Italy came as Afghanistan’s new parliament debated Rahman’s case Wednesday, March 29, and demanded he be barred from leaving the country. Some 500 Afghans, including Muslim leaders and students, reportedly gathered at a mosque in the southern town of Qalat, in Zabul province, to demand the convert be forced to return to Islam or be killed, following similar protests earlier in the week.
MORE PROTESTS
On Monday, March 27, up to 1,000 people joined demonstrations in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif calling for Rahman’s execution and shouting anti-Western slogans. They also accused President Karzai of caving in to international and Christian demands.
"This is a terrible thing and a major shame for Afghanistan," Zabul’s top cleric Abdulrahman Jan said Wednesday, March 29 in published remarks. Human rights groups have suggested that Rahman came to symbolize the persecution of Muslims who converted
to Christianity.
He had become "a voice for the voiceless" as there are "millions of others that suffer due to their religious convictions in China, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Sudan, and many other countries," said advocacy group International Christian Concern (ICC)
in a statement.
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.
CUSTODY BATTLE
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.
A custody battle ensued and the matter was taken to the police. During questioning, it apparently emerged that Rahman was a Christian and carrying a Bible, and he was immediately arrested.
In an interview Rahman made clear he was ready to die for his faith just as "someone, a long time ago, did it for all of us," a clear reference to Jesus who Christians say died at a cross for the sins of mankind before resurrecting on the third day.
Rahman’s case has renewed a debate in Afghanistan over the interpretation of Shariah, or Muslim, law in this conservative nation. 99 percent of Afghanistan’s 28 million people are Muslim, while the rest are mainly Hindus, according to official estimates.
TINY MINORITY
Among the tiny Christian minority few admit their faith because of fear of retribution, observers say. It was not immediately clear where Rahman would live in Italy.
Berlusconi made clear that the man’s exact whereabouts were being kept secret. Italian media quoted unnamed sources who saw Rahman in the past few hours as saying he was "grateful and very happy" to be in Italy.
Beside world leaders, Christians around the world held prayer vigils and wrote letters to Afghan authorities demanding his release. (With BosNewsLife Research and reports from Afghanistan and Italy).
