Afghan converts to christian

[THE KOD]

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan officials, trying to resolve a crisis over an Afghan who may face the death penalty for converting to Christianity, struggled on Saturday to satisfy conflicting international and domestic demands.

The controversy over the man who abandoned Islam, Abdur Rahman, 40, threatens to drive a wedge between Afghanistan and the Western backers who ensure its security and finance its development. Rahman?s trial is due to start in a few days.

International pressure on Afghanistan to respect Rahman?s religious freedom and release him from jail has been met in Afghanistan by calls for him to be tried under Islamic law and executed, and a threat of rebellion if the government frees him.

?There are lots of discussions going on,? said a government official who declined to be identified.

?We know there?s a lot of international concern ... We want to resolve this in a way that accommodates all expectations?international expectations and the expectations of the people.?

Rahman was detained last week for converting to Christianity, judicial officials say. Death is the punishment stipulated by sharia, or Islamic law, for apostasy. The Afghan legal system is based on a mixture of civil and sharia law.

Outcry from international community
The case has sparked an outcry in North America and Europe and led to some calls for peacekeeping troops to be withdrawn.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday she had met both President Hamid Karzai and the foreign minister.

?We are working with the Afghans and we look to a favourable resolution of this case,? Rice said. ?We?ve been very clear: The freedom of religion is a fundamental principle of democracy.?

U.S. forces have been battling Taliban insurgents since defeating their government in late 2001. The United States is Afghanistan?s most important ally.

Pope Benedict has written to Karzai urging clemency for Rahman, the Italian news agency ANSA said on Saturday.

Benedict sent a letter in the past few days ?which appeals for respect for human rights sanctioned in the preamble of the new Afghan constitution,? it added.

?Polar opposites?
Rahman told a preliminary hearing last week he had become a Christian while working for an aid group helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan 15 years ago. He later lived in Germany before returning to Afghanistan.

He was detained after his family told authorities he had converted, apparently following a family dispute involving two daughters, a judicial official said.

A chorus of clerics, politicians and ordinary people in the deeply conservative Muslim country is demanding Rahman be tried under Islamic law, though some Afghans say privately they support greater freedom of religion.

Karzai cannot ignore the conservatives or appear to bow to Western pressure. Canada said he had pledged that Rahman would not be executed.

A prosecutor has raised questions about Rahman?s mental state, and a judge said that could be taken into account. Rahman has denied he is mentally unstable.

The Afghan constitution says ?no law can be contrary to the sacred religion of Islam? but also says it will abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrines freedom of religion.

Copyright 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication
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What a wonderful world of muslim laws and thinking. Muslim reported by family after a dispute. Hey he is a christian now.

What.. !!! Cut off his head. He cant do that.

This shows you why there is no rational thinking in the muslim doctrine. They do not care about the human being just follow their stupid laws.

If we let one muslim become a Christian. then what if others follow. Before long we have no muslims willing to fly planes into buildings.

 

[smurphy]

Kill the infidel. Open and shut case. ....I'm thinking this isn't what Pat Tillman died for.

Unbelievable - the guy's best hope is to appear insane.

We totally should have killed Casius Clay when he became Muslim. As for Lou Alcindor....fuggit about it.

 

[THE KOD]

yeh the clerics think about all the world pressure not to kill the guy.

Cleric - I got a idea.... lets just declare him insane for wanting to be any other religion besides muslim.

That should make everyone happy.

Thats it he is nuts.

Problem is the ones that are insane are the fawking clerics.

the rat bastids

 

[dr. freeze]

the religion of peace

 

[smurphy]

the religion of peices

 

[THE KOD]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters she had received assurances from Karzai in a telephone call that Rahman would not be sentenced to death.

Diplomats have said the Afghan government is searching for a way to drop the case. On Wednesday, authorities said Rahman is suspected of being mentally ill and would undergo psychological examinations to see whether he is fit to stand trial.

But three Sunni preachers and a Shiite one interviewed by The Associated Press in four of Kabul's most popular mosques said they do not believe Rahman is insane.

"He is not crazy. He went in front of the media and confessed to being a Christian," said Hamidullah, chief cleric at Haji Yacob Mosque. "The government is scared of the international community. But the people will kill him if he is freed."

Raoulf, who is a member of the country's main Islamic organization, the Afghan Ulama Council, concurred. "The government is playing games. The people will not be fooled."

"Cut off his head!" he exclaimed, sitting in a courtyard outside Herati Mosque. "We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there's nothing left."

He said the only way for Rahman to survive would be for him to go into exile.

But Said Mirhossain Nasri, the top cleric at Hossainia Mosque, one of the largest Shiite places of worship in Kabul, said Rahman must not be allowed to leave the country.

"If he is allowed to live in the West, then others will claim to be Christian so they can, too," he said. "We must set an example. ... He must be hanged."

The clerics said they were angry with the United States and other countries for pushing for Rahman's freedom.

"We are a small country and we welcome the help the outside world is giving us. But please don't interfere in this issue," Nasri said. "We are Muslims and these are our beliefs. This is much more important to us than all the aid the world has given us."

Afghanistan's constitution is based on Sharia law, which is interpreted by many Muslims to require that any Muslim who rejects Islam be sentenced to death.

Hamidullah warned that the government would lose the support of the people if it frees Rahman, and "there will be an uprising" like the one against Soviet occupying forces in the 1980s.

Human rights group Amnesty International said if Rahman has been detained solely for his religious beliefs, he would be a "prisoner of conscience" and that the charges should be dropped.

Rahman is believed to have lived in Germany for nine years after converting to Christianity while working as a medical aid worker for an international Christian group helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan. He returned to Kabul in 2002.

It was not immediately clear when Rahman's trial would resume. Authorities have barred attempts by the AP to see him and he is not believed to have a lawyer.
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This man should receive no special treatment. The US or any other free country should not have to take him into exile so he can live.

That will solve nothing and just allow them to cause fear so no other person in Afghan would consider being a christian.

When will this crazy thinking stop. When human life is thought no more of than a grain of sand.

Stand on your own. Jesus was killed for being a christian. Do not fear your life as a christian.

 

[smurphy]

Was it really so bad that Sadaam killed 400,000 Muslims?

We should have completely wiped out Afghanistan and started from scratch. We had every moral authority and the support of 95% of America to do that.

If moderate Muslims don't stand up and crush the radicals, then even "liberals" like me will start calling for religious extermination of these backwards cockroaches.

F*k Allah, f*k Muhammad, f*k Islam. Get off the planet, assholes.

 

[THE KOD]

murph

I have trouble taking you seriously with that stick of dynomite
sticking out of your turban.

 

[smurphy]

Don't laugh at me, Scott. That dynamite weilding turban will get me killed as soon as Ahkmed traces my identity. Getting me in trouble with the neocons too. I just can't win. I hope there are virgins waiting for me at the end of the rainbow if nothing else.

 

[THE KOD]

murph

I think I would change the avartar just in case.

I think you made your point.

I would hate to see heads roll.

 

[THE KOD]

F*k Allah, f*k Muhammad, f*k Islam. Get off the planet, assholes.

.........................................................

Sure wish people around here would say how
they really feel.

Fawk all the beating around the rose berry bush.

 

[smurphy]

As I watched this documentary about white supremecist bands in Europe having to play concerts underground and eventually being busted by the cops for saying illegal things, it gave me an odd sense of pride and patriotism. Our freedom of speech is incredible here. We can literally say anything, no matter how absurd. I think this freedom keeps stupid groups of people from ever getting much power and support. As long as everything is out in the open, there's never a heroic mistique about those retards.

I'm not sure what I'm getting at, but basically flaunting an engraven image of Muhammed gives me some kind of patriotic pride. If enough of us do it, maybe the stupid mystique of Islam will be revealed for the joke it is. I know in some places, this is enough to be killed. Those Danes have to hide like Rushdie now.

I am not sensitive to any religion. If religions have problems with freedom of expression or people leaving that religion for another, then they have no place in my world. I thought maybe progress was being made when Iran sponsored a contest for Holocaust cartoons - that was an excellent idea. But I imagine they found that the best submissions were probably from Jews themselves - since Jews have pretty much the best sense of humor in the world. Muslims have no sense of humor and little creativity, so their cartoons probably sucked. They have a long way to go.

 

[djv]

He will survive. He has to or we waisted our time. And to many deaths for these idiots.

 

[THE KOD]

KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan court on Sunday dismissed a case against a man who converted from Islam to Christianity because of a lack of evidence and he will be released soon, officials said.

The announcement came as U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai faced mounting foreign pressure to free Abdul Rahman, a move that risked angering Muslim clerics who have called for him to be killed.

An official closely involved with the case told The Associated Press that it had been returned to the prosecutors for more investigation, but that in the meantime, Rahman would be released.

The court dismissed today the case against Abdul Rahman for a lack of information and a lot of legal gaps in the case,? the official said Sunday, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

?The decision about his release will be taken possibly tomorrow,? the official added. ?They don?t have to keep him in jail while the attorney general is looking into the case.?

Abdul Wakil Omeri, a spokesman for the Supreme Court, confirmed that the case had been dismissed because of ?problems with the prosecutors? evidence.?

He said several family members of Rahman have testified that he has mental problems.

?It is the job of the attorney general?s office to decide if he is mentally fit to stand trial,? he told AP.

A Western diplomat, also declining to be identified because of the sensitivity of the case, said questions were being raised as to whether Rahman would stay in Afghanistan or go into exile in a foreign country.

Rahman is being prosecuted under Afghanistan?s Islamic laws for converting 16 years ago while working as a medical aid worker for an international Christian group helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
......................................................................

what a bunch of scrubs. Still talking about exile for this guy. Still talking about mental problems. He must be crazy for not embracing the ideals of muslims.

They as a country are still retarded

 

[THE KOD]

KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan man who had faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity has been released from prison after the case was dropped, the justice minister said Tuesday.

The announcement came after the United Nations said Abdul Rahman has appealed for asylum outside Afghanistan and that the world body was working to find a country willing to take him.

Justice Minister Mohammed Sarwar Danish told The Associated Press that the 41-year-old was released from the high-security Policharki prison on the outskirts of Kabul late Monday.

We released him last night because the prosecutors told us to,? he said. ?His family was there when he was freed, but I don?t know where he was taken.?

Deputy Attorney General Mohammed Eshak Aloko told the AP that prosecutors had issued a letter calling for Rahman?s release because ?he was mentally unfit to stand trial.? He also said he did not know where Rahman was staying but that he may be sent overseas for medical treatment.

'Abdul Rahman must be killed'
Hours earlier, hundreds of clerics, students and others chanting ?Death to Christians!? marched through the northern Afghan Mazar-i-Sharif to protest the court?s decision Sunday to dismiss the case.

?Abdul Rahman must be killed. Islam demands it,? said senior Cleric Faiez Mohammed, from the nearby northern city of Kunduz. ?The Christian foreigners occupying Afghanistan are attacking our religion.?

Several Muslim clerics have threatened to incite Afghans to kill Rahman if he is freed, saying that he is clearly guilty of apostasy and deserves to die.

Rahman was arrested last month after police discovered him with a Bible. He was put on trial last week for converting 16 years ago while he was a medical aid worker for an international Christian group helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan. He had faced the death penalty under Afghanistan?s Islamic laws.

The case set off an outcry in the United States and other nations that helped oust the hard-line Taliban regime in late 2001 and provide aid and military support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. President Bush and others insisted Afghanistan protect personal beliefs.

U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards said Rahman has asked for asylum ?outside Afghanistan.?

?We expect this will be provided by one of the countries interested in a peaceful solution to this case,? he said.

No country has yet offered asylum to Rahman, an official familiar with the case, who declined to be named because of its sensitivity, told The AP.

Asked whether the U.S. government was doing anything to secure Rahman?s safety after he is released, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington that where he goes after he is freed ?is going to be up to Mr. Rahman.?

He urged Afghans not to resort to violence even if they are unhappy with the resolution of the case.

The international outrage over Rahman?s case put Karzai in a difficult position because he also risked offending religious sensibilities in Afghanistan, where senior Muslim clerics have been united in calling for Raham to be executed.

............................................................................

OK they did the right thing and released the guy for being a insane Christian convert.

Now if the Afghan goverment pres had any kahoonas he would declare that any cleric who espouses the killing of a Afghan citizen will be jailed. Any any person involved in the killing of a Afghan citizen will be given death penalty.

Fight fire with fire dudes.

Instead they will probably pussy out and send the guy to London to protect him. So then any other person thinking this way will also get a free ticket out of Afghan . May be alot of converts before we know it.

 

[THE KOD]

Afghan Arrives in Italy After Fleeing

ROME ? The Afghan man who faced the death penalty after converting from Islam to Christianity flew to Rome on Wednesday after the Italian government granted him asylum. Abdul Rahman, 41, "is already in Italy. I think he arrived overnight," Premier Silvio Berlusconi said.

Abdul Rahman, an Afghan man who converted from Islam to Christianity, is interviewed during a hearing in Kabul on March 16, 2006 in this image made available from tv footage on Sunday, March 26, 2006. Rahman who faced a possible death sentence for converting from Islam to Christianity is to be freed after a court Sunday dismissed the case against him, citing a lack of evidence, officials said. (AP Photo/ Ariana Television via AP Television News)
___
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Just what shouldnt have happened, does.

Geezz these people have no backbones to stand up to the
clerics and mushadeens.

 

[THE KOD]

Study finds no effect of praying for health of heart surgery patients

By MALCOLM RITTER
AP Science Writer
Published on: 03/30/06
NEW YORK ? Does praying for a sick person's recovery do any good?

In the largest scientific test of its kind, heart surgery patients showed no benefit when strangers prayed for their recovery.

And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications. Doctors could only guess why.

Several scientists questioned the concept of the study.

Science "is not designed to study the supernatural," said Dr. Harold G. Koenig, director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at the Duke University Medical Center.

The researchers emphasized that their $2.4 million study could not address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf. The study could look only for an effect from the specific prayers offered as part of the research, they said.

The study "did not move us forward or backward" in understanding the effects of prayer, said Dr. Charles Bethea, a co-author and cardiologist at the Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City. "Intercessory prayer under our restricted format had a neutral effect."

Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School, co-principal investigator of the study, agreed. "We cannot come to a conclusion, except to say that by this study design, with its limitations, this is what we found," he said.

Researchers also said they didn't know why patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of complications than patients who only knew that such prayers were a possibility.

Maybe they became anxious by the knowledge that they'd been selected for prayers, Bethea said: "Did the patients think, 'I am so sick that they had to call in the prayer team?'"

The researchers said family and friends shouldn't be discouraged from telling a patient about their plans to pray for a good recovery. The study only focused on prayers by strangers, they said.

It's the largest and best-designed study ever to test the medical effects of intercessory prayers ? praying on behalf of someone else. But critics said the question of God's reaction to prayer simply can't be explored by scientific study.

The study followed about 1,800 patients at six medical centers. It was financed by the Templeton Foundation, which supports research into science and religion, and one of the participating hospitals. It will appear in Tuesday's issue of the American Heart Journal.

The research team tested the effect of having three Christian groups pray for particular patients, starting the night before surgery and continuing for two weeks. The volunteers prayed for "a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications" for specific patients ? their identities known only by first name and first initial of the last name.

The patients, meanwhile, were split into three groups of about 600 apiece: those who knew they were being prayed for, those who were prayed for but only knew it was a possibility, and those who weren't prayed for but were told it was a possibility.

The researchers didn't ask patients or their families and friends to alter any plans they had for prayer, saying such a step would have been unethical and impractical.

The study looked for any complications within 30 days of the surgery. Results showed no effect of prayer on complication-free recovery. But 59 percent of the patients who knew they were being prayed for developed a complication, versus 52 percent of those who were told it was just a possibility.

Koenig, of Duke University Medical Center, who didn't take part in the study, said the results didn't surprise him.

"There are no scientific grounds to expect a result and there are no real theological grounds to expect a result either," he said. "There is no god in either the Christian, Jewish or Moslem scriptures that can be constrained to the point that they can be predicted."

Within the Christian tradition, God would be expected to be concerned with a person's eternal salvation, he said, and "why would God change his plans for a particular person just because they're in a research study?"

Dr. David Stevens, executive director of the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, said he believes intercessory prayer can influence medical outcomes, but that science is not equipped to explore it.

"Do we control God through prayer? Theologians would say absolutely not. God decides sometimes to intervene, and sometimes not," he said.

As for the new study, he said, "I don't think ... it's going to stop people praying for the sick."
.....................................................................................

kinda interesting

 

[kosar]

I remember W popping off a year or two ago about how we had installed freedom of religion in Afghanistan. This guy converts to Christianity, gets sentenced to death. What an utterly clueless bunch we have making Middle East policy.

They let him go under pressure and all of the top clerics 'inspire' people to 'rip him to pieces', once he leaves prison.

Of course they would have if he didn't escape and get out of the country.

These are the same people that we are trying to 'convert?'

It's the media's fault, clearly.