Muslims Kill Christians… Legally
Fox News brings us this story:
Afghan Man Faces Death for Allegedly Converting to Christianity
The defendant, Abdul Rahman, was arrested last month after his family went to the police and accused him of becoming a Christian… Afghanistan’s constitution is based on Shariah law, which states that any Muslim who rejects their religion should be sentenced to death.
I’m trying to keep religious objectivity here, and not enter into a muslim-bashing tirade, but I feel like people should hear about this. People often try to downplay all the crazy actions and statements by muslims worldwide as a being from a few select radicals, but in this case we have the official constitution of a country stating that leaving Islam is punishable by Death.
I mean, nobody’s allowed to draw cartoons about their religion or they’ll cry and hit things with shoes, but if they don’t like your religion (meaning any religion other than Islam) they’ll kill you?! Nice reasoning skills.
The judge, who seems to have already made his decision even though the trial hasn’t started, says:
We are not against any particular religion in the world. But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law. It is an attack on Islam. … The prosecutor is asking for the death penalty.
What a pitiful explanation. First, leaving Islam is not an attack on Islam (although it’s probably written in the koran somewhere that it is). Second, you’re not against any particular religion?? Well, that’s cool, as long as you don’t discriminate within your vast religious discrimination, then I guess that’s fine? There seems to be so much confusion and paranoia in the Muslim world. It’s really quite embarrassing how archaic their thinking and mindset is.
[The prosecutor] said that he had offered to drop the charges if Rahman changed his religion back to Islam, but the defendant refused.
It’s unbelievable to me that this Braveheart-esque scene can still be played out in this day and age. I’m sure martyrs aren’t uncommon due to mobs and whatnot, but this is the official government of their country who is essentially saying, “convert or die.” There is something terribly wrong with this.
I don’t really know what we can do, but it seems like something needs to be done. We still have military control over the country, and these are the types of rights violations we’re supposed to fight against, so let’s do something.
yeah this is how it has always been with islam. it’s okay to be an xtian or a jew or what have you (not this so much anymore), but if you convert to islam, youd goddam better mean it or we’ll kill you.
it dates back to the expansion of islam, where cities were given the choice: convert, tribute, or the sword. you cant have people converting just to not pay their taxes and then converting back as soon as you move on to spain, can you? makes you think about it a little before you do it.
pretty crazy that they still do this though.
— midas | @
Yeah it seems like that guy needs to go seek asylum with the grand ol’ USofA, or really any place that isn’t an Islamic Theocracy.
I mean but what can we do (as a country)? They are a sovereign state, I’m not a big fan of invading soveriegn states just to make them agree with us. But it would seem like there needs to be a way to get people who don’t want to be Muslims out of the country — assuming they just can’t leave by themselves.
I dunno usually the way we combat human rights violations is with trade emargos. I guess we could stop importing all of their opium.
— MaxPower | @
where am i going to get all my opium from?
— midas | @
We’ll just have to start making opium out of corn grown here in the US.
— RMSzero | @
or harvest it from starbucks poppy seed muffins.
— midas | @
Midas, you may be as bad as Van in killing threads with OT posts.
— MaxPower | @
i wouldn’t invade a country simply bc of this type of law, but we already have invaded. we might as well “fix” some stuff while we can.
i understood it to be for muslim reasons, not for state or tax reasons, but i don’t know how it began or anything. like, the intent of the law was to prevent offending islam. i mean, virtually everyone there is born into islam, so you’re pretty much stuck with it or you could be executed? i guess you could leave the country.
even with your robot hearts, i’m surprised you social liberals are more concerned with your drug habits than you are about religious persecution. like a bunch of hippies.
— Wolf | @
I mean if this was the case in *our* country I would certainly have something to say about it because it is totally wrong. I just don’t know how I feel about force feeding democracy to everyone on the planet.
I’m not really sure what the our deal is over there, do we have any sort of political control anymore? Or did we give that up? Afganastan is like our forgotten war. I have no idea what is going on over there.
It is hard because you have to respect their soverneigty even if they are insane.
— MaxPower | @
“It is hard because you have to respect their soverneigty even if they are insane.”
not always. and, as far as i know we still basically run the country, but maybe not. in any case, i think we stopped respecting their soverneigty when they (directly or not so directly) crashed some planes into some buildings here and we blew up their entire country and took it over. i’ve already said that i’m not saying we force our agenda on everyone, but we already are doing so in this case.
— Wolf | @
also, in case you couldn’t tell, i was kidding about the hippie robot-heart drug habit thing.
— Wolf | @
“It is hard because you have to respect their soverneigty even if they are insane.”
Not if you pretend to have evidence that they are about to attack us. Then it’s okay to invade.
— RMSzero | @
Yeah I am too lazy to do the research, but in Iraq, even though we routinely blow the crap out of stuff there, I don’t think at this point (earlier we could have) we could interfere in a trial that the nacent Iraqi government was holding.
But maybe the situation is different in Afganistan. Didn’t we write them a constitution or something? Man I really have no idea what is going on over there.
— MaxPower | @
I mean if we *are* in control over there it would be embarrassing to not intervene in this siduation.
— MaxPower | @
I’m pretty sure we don’t “run things” there. So I don’t expect us to do any intervening.
— RMSzero | @
as far as i know they are a “soverign” nation now. as much of a soverign nation as you can be when you have no control over most of your territory, but yes they write their own laws and have their own constitution now. we don’t govern them anymore.
i mean it is obviously Wrong to kill him by any objective measure of the term. and we could certainly pressure them using Strong Language not to do it, if anyone cared enough about this guy. we might even get somewhere since we invented their country.
but there’s only so much you can do, i mean the USA kills people all the time for breaking laws and the rest of the world thinks we are barbarians for it. is there anything france could do to make you change your mind that executing a serial killer is okay?
— midas | @
This story only serves to deepen the divide between Christians and Muslims. The news media should be ashamed of themselves for perpetuating the notion of Islam as a blood thirsty cult.
Thank you midas for pointing out that we have to look at this from their point of view. Thier law is their law and one must respect the law of the land. My guess is that this guy already knew about this law and is ready to accept his punishment. It’s hard for us to look at other cultures without our eurocentric biases. Executions of the innocent happen in other countries all the time. Most of the time we don’t hear about it, or if we do, we do nothing about it (Sudan, Rwanda, Chad, Argentina, Nicaragua, Cambodia). That is unless it’s a european country (Bosnia), then we’re all over it. I don’t know where we should draw the line as far as what to do in other countries.
— RVAkid | @
We execute innocents in our country occassionally too. There are no six sigma black belts working for the federal judiciary, that’s for sure.
— RMSzero | @
even if we don’t have direct control over their laws, our military conrols the country and i think we still have a lot of say. it’s probably not a good idea to point a tank at them demand that they change the law, but i think we have a lot of power to pursaude them. it’s really embarrassing that we went there to provide “freedom and democracy” and we’re still there and this is going on. freedom?
also, we’re talking about killing a guy for being a religion. we’re not talking about the death penalty for murder. 2 vastly different “crimes” (if you can call choosing a religion a crime). it really has nothing to do with the punishment or the death penalty, but that he’s being punished at all. i don’t see this as a death penalty issue whatsoever. i feel like this must violate some sort of international rights something-another.
other than military threats or actions, rights violations is almost the only time that the international community finds it ok to violate another’s sovereignty. like, if they started massacring thousands of people, then it seems to be ok to move in. i don’t think this constitutes that, though. i don’t know what other options there are. i just think that it’s a shame for people to sit back and say “it’s their country, they should be able to do what they want.” this is obviously a terrible misjustice.
— Wolf | @
the prosecutor said “it is Islamic law and it is illegal to be a Christian and it should be punished.”
what was the point in going there?? i mean, this is the attitude of jihad. this makes me feel like nothing has changed there? i know some stuff has, but isn’t this one of the fundamental most important reasons to go- this is very similar to the justification they would use in attacking us.
also, RVAkid, “This story only serves to deepen the divide between Christians and Muslims. The news media should be ashamed of themselves for perpetuating the notion of Islam as a blood thirsty cult.”
it seems like muslims executing christians for existing “deepens the divide” not the media reporting it. i mean, this is story about what’s actually going on there- you read into what you want to, but it’s not like this is some fiction novel.
— Wolf | @
upon doing some research, their new constitution accepts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (U.N., 1948). Article 18 states:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
this is part of their constitution. so *maybe* the muslim radicals will not prevail and the judge will acknowledge this part of the law. we’ll have to wait and see.
— Wolf | @
boy i hate moral relativism. this is abominable. understand why it’s happening but… never accept it.
thank you wolf.
— Coulie | @
Good research there wolf. It will be interesting to see how this turns out, or even if we will here about how it turns out. “Man not executed” is less exciting than “Man executed.”\
I don’t think it is moral relativism btw. I am against killing this guy just like I am against capital punishment here, and ridiculous killings in Africa. The issue is I don’t know if there is anything our government can/should do.
— MaxPower | @
i feel like, bc of the UN thing, the international community should be able to say, “hey, come on, honor this committment you’ve made. let’s move forward.” it will mean more if they do the right thing on their own anyway.
— Wolf | @
the media have a responsibility to report news, and as far as I’m concerned, this news is no more or less appropriate than any other execution. If you’re going to report human rights abuses, lets give them all a fair shake, not just report on those that would seek to divide people already divided. If people here could see that this was happening in non-Islamic nations, maybe it would not garner as much attention.
— RVAkid | @
i think people are missing my point. i wasnt comparing this to executing people here. i was saying that yes obviously this is a bad thing for them to do. but there is not a single reasonable thing that we could do about it. yes we have tanks over there. what do you want, reinvade their country, take down the democracy we just set up because they didnt do it the way we like it? that’s not a practical option.
my comparision to the death penalty was not to say that the two executions would be the same. it was to say that our perceptions of them are similar to european perceptions of us. is there anything that the europeans could do to convince you that the death penalty is bad? no. is there anything we could do to convince the afghans that the death penalty is bad? no. that’s my point. that’s not “moral relativism.”
— midas | @
It takes us years to move in on human rights violations in Africa, if at all. If something ridiculous happens in America, we don’t even put it on the news. But wait - a Muslim is oppressing a Christian?! Move in the troops!
Boy, do you know what I hate? I hate when the ends are used to justify the means. Wresting control over the rule of law away from a sovreign and newly democratic nation by force is NOT justified in this case, especially when the trial hasn’t even happened yet.
— RMSzero | @
— MaxPower | @
BTW I want to go on the record and state that the prime directive is stupid and prevents foreign investment from profiting from and enhancing the standard of living for pre-warp civilizations.
— RMSzero | @
thank you RMSzero. that’s what i was trying to say.
— RVAkid | @
guys, why so black and white?! you act like the only 2 options are military take-over or do nothing at all. (did Bush invade your brains?) they already come to the US and the UN for advice when they have questions like this- many people there have a lot of respect for the diplomats helping them become something and would listen to them regarding this topic. and, i think they are making efforts to make good with the international community. i think we still have a lot of power there and we could help to make this happen without force (i’ve said this already).
i believe the ‘moral relativism’ that coulie (or somebody) referred to had to do with RVAkid justifying things with “well maybe we just don’t understand their culture. if they think it’s cool to kill babies, then that’s up to them.” ok, he didn’t say that exactly. but at some point there has to be a minimum common standard and i think most people believe this is below that standard (that’s what the UN document is for, right?).
of course, not meeting this minimum standard does not mean somebody should invade and make them change. i think this has been stated by me and a probably everyone else since forever ago (even though they are still invaded by us now). the reason that this issue is so important in this instance (versus the very different situations rmszero mentioned) is that it’s in a country where we have a lot of political sway (among other swaying means). we have installed (through democracy of course!) a relatively pro-US government that we have daily interactions with, and we are already doing so much to rebuild their country. other than bad things happening in all the examples, sudan, rowanda, and maye have almost nothing in common with this situation. this isn’t alleged gov’t sponsered militias, this is the official court of the country, the official law of the land. and we have a lot of ability to make a difference here with very little effort. i mean, at a minimum, have one of the writers of the constitution meet with the judge in this case and remind him of the UN agreement that he is sworn to uphold. or is that a flagrant abuse of sovereignty?
rvakid- thanks for your presumptuous judgements of the media’s intentions. you might want to call the guy waiting in a prison cell for his death penalty trial, and inform him of your beef with the media.
haha, max, come on- the Prime Directive?? i guess afghanistan is ‘primitive’ as defined as “any culture which has not yet attained warp drive” as wikipedia puts it. but we don’t have warp drive either, so we are a primitive society as well, and i’m not sure the Prime Directive applies between 2 primitive societies. does it? seriously, dude, the Prime Directive?
— Wolf | @
you misunderstood my intention. i didn’t mean to say that the media are intentionally trying to perpetuate this notion, but because of their lack of concience it is what has happened. this story sells papers and ad times more than other stories. i’m saying they should report on htis story, but also not leave out others. do you think that i mean to suggest that this man’s life is of no importance because of another country’s laws? Presumptuous!?! the only presumption I’m making is that the media use these stories to sell, it just so happens that controversy sells. this controversy is selling papers and ad times because it has to do with Muslims (potentially) killing a christian. I’m saying that if it were a Jew or a Hindu to be executed we never would’ve heard about it. This is my beef with the media.
In the mean time, i agree with you Wolf, that this man’s rights need to be protected, in this, i think, we’re all in agreement. You are correct in saying that there are diplomatic methods of dealing with this situation. A UN ambassador should serve as a reminder to the fledgling government of Afghanistan that this is not the agreement they have entered into. Diplomacy should always be sought before any other avenue.
The other thing is, can this Islamic Theocracy get recommendations from its framers or reps from the UN and still maintain its viability in the point of view of its constituents? Typically governments in this area and nature do not look kindly on any interference regardless of its benevolence. I’m not saying we should sit back and do nothing. It’s just a sticky situation, and there is no easy answer. Debate brings discussion, knowlege and ideas.
and as far as “killing babies, that’s up to them”…China? we’ve left them alone on that.
— RVAkid | @
oh, well forgive me for misunderstanding “This story only serves to deepen the divide between Christians and Muslims. The news media should be ashamed of themselves for perpetuating the notion of Islam as a blood thirsty cult.”
also, this story is actually getting a far amount of international attention- this isn’t just greedy white christian fox news. i know the story was even in pakistan’s daily news paper. maybe i would say this thread has enough going on in it without the media-bashing, which could be an entire topic itself (and has been before on haduken). you’ll have no trouble convincing anybody on haduken that the media has other interest other than reporting the most important stories.
i guess i get frustrated by people pointing fingers in every direction at other situations. sure, there are terrible things happening all over the place; some much worse than this situation. but this is the situation at hand. i’d love to do whatever we can do to get china not to kill babies too. again, afghan man seems much easier to diffuse than china.
— Wolf | @
ROME (Reuters) - The United States and three NATO allies with troops in Afghanistan expressed concern to the Kabul government on Tuesday about reports that an Afghan convert to Christianity faced the death penalty there.
The United States, which counts Afghan President Hamid Karzai as a key ally in the region, urged religious freedom in talks with visiting Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah.
“We have underscored the importance of freedom of worship, tolerance and freedom to express oneself, as a core element of democracy,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
“This is, at the moment, a legal issue for the Afghan government and we would urge the Afghan government to proceed in a fair and transparent manner.”
Italy called in the Afghan ambassador in Rome, two Berlin cabinet ministers spoke out and Germany’s top Catholic cardinal demanded his freedom. Canada said it was concerned and urged the Afghan government to meet its human rights obligations.
The protests present a dilemma for Karzai, who needs foreign troops to defend against al Qaeda and Taliban remnants.
— Wolf | @
there, Haduken made all that happen.
also, that last sentence was thinking out of the box- rather than use the presence of our troups as a threat, we can use the lack of presence of our troops as a threat. perhaps not a terribly terrifying threat, but still.
i’m just glad people are talking.
— Wolf | @
Hey that is great, diplomacy at work!
Good work haduken.
— MaxPower | @
No, this is good. I just thought it would be stupid to interfere with brute force, or “fix” the situation ourselves, or something like that. I mean, we can’t swoop in and snatch the guy away, for instance.
But telling the leadership of Afghanistan that we have issues with the situation is definitely the right thing to do. I’m glad we’re doing that.
— RMSzero | @
agreed. see we can all get along.
“it doesn’t matter where we’re from, as long as we’re all the same religion.” - Peter Griffin
— RVAkid | @
i just skimmed through all those posts because i have been locked in a freezing garage for the last 3 days. but i have to say that the prime directive will bear no criticism while i am around. everybody gets one warning but after that we’ll have to have a “who would win between star wars and star trek” battle and trust me you dont want to go there.
also, here is the google ad for this page for me:
“MUSLIM
Free to join. 1000’s of pictures & video’s of Beautiful Indian singles”
wtf?
— midas | @
Hey tonight on cspan2 was the Afgan foreign minister talking at George Washington. He said he was going do some Q&A about this issue. But then I fell asleep unfortunately.
He did say that Sec. State Rice had been in contact with him and he was hoping to find an acceptable solution. So that is something.
— MaxPower | @
The thing that astonishes me is that people think that Islam is a religon of peace. The koran definitly preaches violence. Now i know people will say that there is plenty of violence in the bible. But i think the koran crosses the line
— murfdog | @
I just skimmed through a story on cnn that was somewhat disturbing-
“”Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die,” said cleric Abdul Raoulf, who is considered a moderate and was jailed three times for opposing the Taliban before the hard-line regime was ousted in 2001.”
link
— nic | @
have you read the koran?
i was thinking about it but i’m afraid to buy it with a credit card cuz of big brother. gibbon says that you can’t really appreciate it unless you read it in its original arabic though.
— midas | @
I have a copy you can borrow, just remind me when you are in town next
— nic | @
sweeet. books!
— midas | @
if you’d like to gain some more info or look at some other interesting stuff about the bible and the Koran you can go here.
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/
(sorry, i don’t know how to do all the fancy hyperlink jazz, guess i’m behind the times)
there’s also a link to the cartoons in the danish papers and some other neat stuff in the “-more” category
look around this site, you can see the koran in the same notations
— RVAkid | @
I’ve read the parts of the Koran and I feel like I have one, but nic and I may have shared it I forget. But my overall impression as on par with OT level violence.
— MaxPower | @
I think we had 2 and we each kept one? I’m really not sure. I know that at one time we had 2, and now I’m pretty sure I have 1.
— nic | @
i have 2 copies of “inca gold,” a dirk pitt (TM) adventure by clive cussler. one is in danish or something. “her goutt des inkas.”
— midas | @
……..
An Afghan Christian facing possible execution for converting from Islam was likely to be released from jail “soon,” a senior government official said following huge Western pressure over the case.
“He is likely to be released soon,” the official said, adding there would be a top-level meeting on the matter Saturday.
……..
— Wolf | @
I’d read the koran, but I don’t find many redeeming qualities in the people or cultures that have embraced it. I might read it as a way to understanding the influences of the ‘enemy’ but to hope I’d find wisdom or insight in the text itself is to waste my time. I read the Tao te Ching and other texts because they seem to be a positive factor in the sucess/contentment of others.
What good is religion if it doesn’t improve our society? I kind of like the Prime Directive. Even if it’s stupid, it is at least not hypocritical. I kinda think either you interfere AND invest and improve, or you do nothing. Because, too often, investment without control/oversight/interference — is giving a man a fish.
— Coulie | @
“An Afghan court has dismissed the case against a man on trial for allegedly converting from Islam to Christianity for lack of evidence, an official said.”
ting.
— Wolf | @
Well that is pretty sweet. Now they just need to revise their laws that put him there. Or correctly enforce their existing laws I guess.
— MaxPower | @
i’m not sure exactly what “lack of evidence” means. i’m thinking that maybe it’s an interpretation that converting from islam isn’t really evidence enough to prove any real assault on islam (which is the alleged crime i think). i don’t know though. i don’t know if dismissing a case really constitutes precedence either?
— Wolf | @