WASHINGTON, March 31 (UPI) -- Abdul Rahman, the Afghan Muslim who last week faced possible execution for converting to Christianity was safe in Italy Thursday, but left behind him a heated controversy over his aborted trial. The Taliban issued a statement calling for a Jihad (holy war) against President Hamid Karzai, who had intervened on Rahman's behalf under strong pressure from President Bush and the international community. The fundamentalist movement said the release of the Christian convert proved that Karzai was nothing but "a puppet," with foreigners pulling the strings.
"Afghan judges are no longer independent," said the Taliban statement distributed in Kabul, the Afghan capital. "Their decisions are dictated by foreign elements." Their protest echoed the sentiments of many Afghans even though they have no love for the Taliban, for the Rahman case had brought to the fore the underlying tension between the secular government and a society that is traditional, tribal, and deeply chauvinistic.
"Karzai will pay a political price for this at some point, although we don't know what it will be," Afghan expert Vali Nasr, senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the U.S. think tank the Council on Foreign Relations told United Press International. "The perception is that he caved in under Christian pressure."
Rahman, who became a Christian 16 years ago while working as a medical aid at a Christian mission in Pakistan, was caught in possession of a Bible, and was arrested earlier this month. The Afghan constitution recognizes Islam as the national religion, but says followers of other religions are allowed to practise their respective faiths. Still, under Sharia law, the Islamic code which is also recognized by the constitution, the punishment for a Muslim who converts to another religion is death. Such cases are rare these days and experts say that judges tend to find interpretations that avoid the death penalty. But the conservatives seized on the Rahman case as a chance to challenge Afghanistan's new secular constitution, and to put the Karzai government on the defensive. In a country where even half the tribal chiefs, warlords, and others who sit in the Afghan parliament are illiterate, it was a simple issue, clear-cut and easily grasped by all.
When word of Abdul Rahman's likely fate became known, appeals for clemency poured in to President Karzai, including a personal letter from Pope Benedict XVI, and a direct request from the White House. To Westerners, it was a human rights issue, also involving freedom of worship. But, says Nasr, "Muslims see conversion to Christianity as a mark of cultural treason, a sort of colonialism, and the convert as a kind of Uncle Tom character." Last week, many prominent Afghan clerics and lawyers were calling for Rahman's execution as a signal to the population that in the midst of change, the old rules still applied on issues involving the Muslim faith.
On Tuesday, the trial was stopped and Rahman was released, with the Sharia court saying it lacked sufficient evidence to proceed with the case. However, media in Kabul reported that Karzai, caught between international pressure and the clamor from Afghan conservatives, had stepped in to free the Christian. With the help of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, Rahman applied for refugee status in Germany, where he had lived for the past nine years. Berlin, though, was reluctant to accept him, fearing that it could put at risk the sizeable German peacekeeping presence in Afghanistan. Germany is currently the lead country in the NATO force in Afghanistan, with 3,000 troops. Italy stepped into the breach, offering Rahman asylum, even though there are 1,775 Italian soldiers in the NATO force. But the press in Rome pointed out that Italy has long standing sentimental ties with the Afghan people. For one thing, the last king of Afghanistan, Mohammed Zaher Shah lived in exile in Rome for 30 years. The ex-king now lives in Kabul.
Tom Keonig, head of the U.N. Mission in Kabul, said the United Nations stepped in because this was a human rights case, and also because "We saw a grave danger for Afghanistan's relations with many of its most committed international supporters." Karzai's government still relies heavily on aid from the United States and other countries. Yet though Rahman has left the scene, the fallout from the case continues to beset Karzai. On Wednesday, the Afghan parliament called on the government to prevent Rahman from leaving the country -- but the bird had already flown: the Italian government announced that Rahman was coming to Rome only after he had already landed in Rome. There have also been street demonstrations against his release in some Afghan towns. The core of the conflict, says Nasr, is "about Islam and the West -- modernity in Afghanistan."
