Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Afghanistan Christian, Abdul Rahman, Released

Abdul Rahman, The man who converted to Christianity 15 years ago, has been released by the Afghanistan courts and from prison. He is currently in hiding and is seeking to flee Afghanistan if he hasn't yet done so.

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Update: Yahoo News: 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. - End update - We will now return you to the original post...
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This is the point where the news starts getting fuzzy. One article will say he is seeking asylum while another says Italy has offered asylum. One says his family has rejected him. Another says his family met him at the gates and whisked him away. Yet another makes it appear the government is hiding him in a 'safe house'.

One story I found interesting was this:


From Time.com: Abdul Rahman's Family Values

- Western leaders breathed a sigh of relief yesterday at the release of Abdul Rahman, a Christian convert who had faced the death penalty under Afghanistan's Islamic law for renouncing his Muslim faith. Rahman, 40, has become the poster boy for the Christian right and for religious freedom. Closer up, however, the picture painted by the local police who arrested him shows a candidate not quite ready for family values. Rather, a portrait emerges of a deadbeat dad with psychological problems who couldn't hold down a job, abused his daughters and parents and didn't pay child support. -
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Colonel Mohammed Saber Monseffi, the chief crime officer at the 15th district police station in Kabul, brought Abdul Rahman in for questioning after a domestic dispute turned violent late last month. Says Monseffi, "He told me, 'I'm a Christian,' and I said that is not of any interest to me. I asked him why did you beat your father, why did you beat your daughters?" The fact that Rahman was Christian was secondary to his family's desire to get him out of the house, said Monseffi, who adds that his own wife is a Russian Christian.
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it continues
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Witness statements by his teenage daughters Mariam and Maria, aged 13 and 14, on the night of his arrest appear to detail his failures as a parent. "He behaves badly with us and we were threatened and disgraced by him. He has no job and has never given me a stitch of clothing or a crust of bread. Just his name as a father," said his 13-year-old daughter Mariam in a statement signed with her inky fingerprint.
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"He said he was my father but he hasn't behaved like a father since he came back to Afghanistan. He threatens us and we are all afraid of him and he doesn't believe in the religion of Islam," her statement said.
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Abdul Rahman's own parents refused to take his side. A statement by his mother Ghul Begum reads: "We brought up his children and for eight years he didn't come home. Because he has converted from Islam to another religion we don't want him in our house." His father Abdul Manan's statement says, "(Abdul Rahman) wanted to change the ethics of my children and family. He is not going in the right direction. I have thrown him out of my house." Abdul Rahman's own statement does not dispute his financial straits. "Since I am jobless my family is with my children. I had economic problems with my family and my father has many complaints about me. He has warned me if I don't become a Muslim, I will be driven away from the house."
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prying1 sez:
I really have to wonder about the veracity of Times article. I see so many contradictions throughout all the stories concerning this man I think it will take a while for the dust to settle. I'm willing to bet that the man did get violent however the children's statements as written by Time.com did not include physical violence but more of the mental abusive type.

Was Colonel Mohammed Saber Monseffi right in asking the question about him beating his children and father? Is the man really nuts?

But more importantly, was there any reason to condemn this man to death?



All Time.com's story really does, besides making me ask more questions, is reinforce the old bumper sticker slogan: "Christians Aren't Perfect, Just Forgiven".

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sources:
http://www.christianfreedom.org/messages.aspx?id=622
http://civilliberty.about.com/b/a/2006_03_28.htm
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1178054,00.html
http://www.wdcmedia.com/newsArticle.php?ID=948
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