Afghan Faces Death Penalty for Converting to Christianity: Judge Says He Could Escape Punishment If He's Ruled Insane
Now that's the type of headline that makes my morning! Er, until I realize we "democratized" that country four years ago and they are still executing people for apostasy.
Found via Americablog, Here's some of the article:
mmmm.
Found via Americablog, Here's some of the article:
KABUL, Afghanistan, March 20, 2006 - Despite the overthrow of the fundamentalist Taliban government and the presence of 22,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a man who converted to Christianity is being prosecuted in Kabul, and a judge said Sunday that if convicted, he faces the death penalty.Since our installment of Hamid Karzai as President after the overthrow of the Taliban, he is often jokingly referred to as the "Mayor of Kabul" since most of the country is still run by insane warlords. But this isn't happening in some remote village; It's happening in Kabul. Can someone explain? I mean, considering how Karzai is essentially this Administration's bitch, you'd think they would pressure him into making sure stuff like this didn't happen. Unless Afghanistan is way more fucked than anyone wants to acknowledge.
Abdul Rahman, who is in his 40s, says he converted to Christianity 16 years ago while working as an aid worker helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
Relatives denounced him as a convert during a custody battle over his children, and he was arrested last month. The prosecutor says Rahman was found with a Bible.
Presiding judge Ansarullah Mawlazezadah tells ABC News a medical team was checking the defendant, since the team suspects insanity caused Rahman to reject Islam.
...
"We will ask him if he has changed his mind about being a Christian," Mawlazezadah says. "If he has, we will forgive him, because Islam is a religion of tolerance."
mmmm.
posted by Matt Bors at 9:06 AM
8 Comments:
Democracy is "government by the people in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system."
If we believe the claims of world governments, Afghanistan is a Decmoratic county.
Hence, this concern about "democratic freedoms" is only applicable if "democracy" is defined as "the hegemonic enforcement of Western ideals upon a populace".
Quick question: are we interesed in Democracy or are we interested in enforcing Western ideals on others?
I Myself am interested in Democracy. A True Democracy would allow people freedom of expression and religion. The man the will be executed is not represented.
You think *not* killing people for converting to christianity is a Western ideal that we are imposing on them?
Man, next we'll tell them stoning women is wrong. But maybe we should just respect those that stone women and not impose our insane Western lifestyle on them.
Human rights are not "Western ideals" they're just human rights.
You say freedoms of "true democracy", however I think you mean Western liberal democracy. A democracy is simply a government "for the people, by the people and of the people."
In Islamic law, People are free to choose their religion but in the case of a Muslim rejecting Islam in a Muslim society, it is considered to be a case of treason.
Since that is the law of a democratic country, no other democratic country which has different values should be allowed to impose their own values on the other. No?
Peace.
You wrote:
A democracy is simply a government "for the people, by the people and of the people."
If that is true, then the government must protect the rights of a minority (christians, atheists, etc.)or else thay are not represented. Democracy does not mean that the majority dictate whatever laws they please, regardless of a contitution or basic human rights. Just because a majority may believe apostasy is punishable by death doesn't mean it should apply to all (or any) citizens...that 'law' is derived from a religion.
Now, I don't expect them to transform overnight or at the barrel of a gun, but c'mon. If you apply that logic to anything all you have to do is convince 51% of people that something is right.
Let's take teaching intelligent design. A majority of people believe it should be taught in Science classes, so we should do it even though it isn't science?
I'm sorry, I'm not with you on this. Not killing people for apostsy is not some crazy Western idea we are trying to ruin their culture over. It's just a human right not to be mudered for what you believe. ANY country that imposes a religious law has created an undemocratic law, regardless of how many people believe it is right.
OK. :)
Read this to understand my perspective:
http://www.abc.se/~m9783/fiqhi/sm1-gfh_e.html#apos
To clarify what I believe to be a misunderstanding, this is not targetting the person for what they believe but rather targetting the harm that comes to the rest of society.
Peace. :)
Matt Bors,
It is obvious that in a democracy it is impossible to please all members of the society. There will always be circumstances when disagreements occur between groups. Because of this the government must make a decision based on the view of the majority because it is them that the government is representing. The government is representing the majority, not the minority because the government has been voted in by the majority. If they did not do the will of the majority they would not be representing the people they are supposed to be. So yes, if the majority votes for something the government has a responsibility to do it because that's what a democracy is.
If a government is making decisions a minority group disagrees with it will not always be from lack of representation. It could just be that they are represented to the degree their number warrants. If all groups are represented reasonably the majority will always have more influence so decisions made will represent the majorities views not those of the minority. It is completely reasonable that if the majority in Afghanistan disagrees with your take on human rights then the government should in fact reject those suposed human rights.
The human rights you believe in have been structured to cater for the views of the majority in the countries they were constructed. Human rights are not unwritten laws that everyone agrees on. Because of this the Afghani government most likely does believe in human rights, just believes them to be different from what you believe them to be.
You stated that any country that imposes a religious law has created an undemocratic law. That is a crazy suggestion. Democracy is not atheistic, it's representory. This means that if the majority is religious then to represent the views of the society the government should implement religious laws. To not do so would be imposing the goverments point of view, not letting the people decide which is obviously leaning more towards totalitarianism that it is democracy.
Last but not least, may I point out that the human rights you believe in sprang from christian societies and christian beliefs. They also sprang from democratic societies. Human rights are, at their roots, religious and rightly so. If democracy was required to reject religious laws then western human rights would be undemocratic because of their strongly religious base. Surely this is not true. In reality western human rights are democratic within western countries, nowhere else. They are obviously not universally accepted (the example of Afghanistan shows this) and therefore must represent the opinions of one group. The human rights generally believed in within western countries are not unbiased, they have been greatly influenced by the culture they originated from.
Please consider these points in future when discussing the nature of both human rights and democracy in this kind of public forum.
PS. As a christian I believe in both universal human rights and democracy as the way to go. I think that the case of Abdul Rahman is shocking but despite this find your reasoning to be unsatisfactory. I think that Shukri has a much more solid case. I hope you guys don't mind me interfering in your discussion but just thought I'd share my views.
Kung Pow,
You bbring up a lot of points. First of all, I didn't saw all Democratic law is atheistis. It should be secular, like the vast majority of laws here. That means it respects the rights of minorities...in race, religion, etc.
You both seem to think Democracy means mob rule and 51% of the people can make up whatever they please. That's not the case, though because these types of countries have constitutions. In Afghanistans constitution it states that you have freedom of religion. It also states that all law will be based on the koran. Needless to say these are completely contradictory statements as the hadith commands you to murder all apostates.
You say these are my "opinions" on "supposed human rights" Given this logic, a society in your eyes could be created that would murder everyone with curly hhair. Overtime, the majority of people could be led to believe that this was right. Normal even. And because of that we must let them do it.
At some point the vast majority in this country thought women and blacks were inferior. Was that just an opinion or is there a truth to the situation and they were completely wrong?
What I'm saying is there are certain practices that are unacceptable no matter how many people believe them. We didn't live in a democracy when blacks and women (the majority of people) couldn't even vote. Afghans don't have freedom if they should decide, of their own free will to change faiths, they have to fear for their life. They are slaves to Kranic law.
Post a Comment
<< Home