March 21, 2006

Who Will Save Abdul Rahman?

Abdul Rahman is a man of faith. "I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in Christ. And I am a Christian," he declared this week.

Unfortunately for Rahman, he was originally born a Muslim in Afghanistan—and he has been forced to defend his religious conversion in his home country's court, where he now faces the death penalty for turning to Jesus. Despite the defeat of the totalitarian Taliban and the existence of a U.S.-backed "moderate" democratic government, it is a capital crime for Afghanis to openly embrace any religion other than Islam. Sharia law, embedded in the Afghan constitution, overrides its human rights provisions.

Rahman's family has denounced him as mentally ill. Afghan officials are thirsting for his blood. "We will cut him into little pieces," jail employee Hosnia Wafayosofi told the Chicago Tribune, as she "made a cutting motion with her hands." Afghan man faces death for abandoning Islam By Kim Barker, March 21, 2006

The Tribune reported that prosecutor Abdul Wasi demanded Rahman's repentance and called him a traitor: "He is known as a microbe in society, and he should be cut off and removed from the rest of Muslim society and should be killed." The country's attorney general says Rahman should be hung. The judge handling the case, who has been photographed wielding Rahman's Bible as evidence against him, threatens: "If he doesn't regret his conversion, the punishment will be enforced on him. And the punishment is death."

This is a watershed moment in the post-Sept. 11 world. The Taliban are out of power. And yet today, an innocent man sits in the jail of a "moderate" Muslim nation praying for his life because he owned a Bible and refuses to renounce his Christian faith. Rahman, who converted many years ago while working for a Christian aid agency in Germany, "is standing by his words," fellow jail inmate Sayad Miakel told Canada's Globe and Mail. [Afghan man faces death for turning to Christianity, March 21, 2006]Another cellmate, Khalylullah Safi, reported: "He keeps looking up to the sky, to God."

As of Tuesday afternoon, left-wing Amnesty International had nothing to say about the case. But neither did President Bush, a man of faith and a Christian brother. During his extensive White House press conference on the War on Terror and the defense of freedom overseas, Bush spent plenty of time describing what life was like for Afghanis before Operation Enduring Freedom:

"There was no such thing as religious freedom. There was no such thing as being able to express yourself in the public square. There was no such thing as press conferences like this. They were totalitarian in their view. And that would be—I'm referring to the Taliban, of course. And that's how they would like to run government. They rule by intimidation and fear, by death and destruction. And the United States of America must take this threat seriously and must not—must never forget the natural rights that formed our country."

President Bush, who will defend Abdul Rahman's natural rights from being usurped and terminated by Afghanistan's Islamic executioners?

Tony Perkins at the Family Research Council raises the unpleasant question Bush evaded and no one in the White House press corps bothered to ask:

"How can we congratulate ourselves for liberating Afghanistan from the rule of jihadists only to be ruled by Islamists who kill Christians? . . . President Bush should immediately send Vice President Cheney or Secretary Rice to Kabul to read [Afghan President] Hamid Karzai's government the riot act. Americans will not give their blood and treasure to prop up new Islamic fundamentalist regimes. Democracy is more than purple thumbs."

Embarrassingly, the governments of Italy and Germany have already stepped forward to make direct appeals to Karzai to save Rahman's life. Hamid Karzai has ducked the issue so far. Our feckless State Department is "monitoring" the situation.

If we sit on the sidelines and watch this man "cut into little pieces" for his love of Christ, we do not deserve the legacy of liberty our Founding Fathers left us. How about offering Rahman asylum in the United States? Perhaps Yale University, proud sponsor of former Taliban official Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, can offer Rahman a scholarship. Where's the Catholic Church, so quick to offer sanctuary to every last illegal alien streaming across the borders? And how about Hollywood, so quick to take up the cause of every last Death Row inmate?

Hello, anyone, hello?

Michelle Malkin [email her] is author of Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s review. Click here for Michelle Malkin's website. Michelle Malkin's latest book is "Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild."