No Christian Afghanis permitted.

Kabul -- The recent case of an Afghani man, who faced the death penalty under Islamic Sharia law for converting to the Christian faith, points to the difficulty involved in helping Islamic societies that do not recognize freedom of religion.

This, in turn, raises questions about the wisdom of democratic Western nations devoting military and other material resources to such countries. Islamic prosecutors of Abdul Rahman had sought his death for "apostasy," even though the Afghani constitution decrees the right to freedom of religion. After intense pressure from the U.S., the Vatican and other Western countries--including Canada--local officials cited "a lack of evidence" and "legal gaps" in their eventual decision to drop the case. Kabul imams, recognizing the move as a cheap trick, denounced the ruling, together with hundreds of people who feared the country, 99 per cent Muslim, would be shamed in the eyes of the Muslim world.

Compass Direct, an organization monitoring Christian persecution, reported that two more Afghani Christian converts had been jailed in the wake of the Rahman case, while a third was beaten and knocked unconscious. Muslim clerics, described as "moderate" by the Western press, called for Rahman to be "torn to pieces" by a mob when he asked for asylum outside of Afghanistan. He was eventually allowed to go to Italy. "Rejecting Islam is insulting God. We will not allow God to be humiliated. This man must die," said cleric Abdul Raoulf.

Truly moderate Muslim scholars who question the mandate for execution are few and far between and are silenced--one writer spent three months in jail in 2005 for doing just that. The key dilemma facing Afghanistan remains the fact that the country's constitution upholds the right to freedom of religion on the one hand, but enshrines the supremacy of Sharia law which rejects religious freedom, on the other.

The same Sharia law keeps women in bondage, including a denial of proper schooling for girls, and restricts the dignity of both women and men in many different ways (various news sources; see also under United States, Canada).