Is this guy a genuine Christian, a Muslim pretending to be a Christian just to piss off the Islamists in his country, a retarded religious freak (regardless of his denomination), or a spy for the United States? Associated Press reports:
Afghan Convert May Be Unfit for Trial
By DANIEL COONEY, Associated Press Writer
An Afghan man facing a possible death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity may be mentally unfit to stand trial, a state prosecutor said Wednesday.
Abdul Rahman, 41, has been charged with rejecting Islam, a crime under this country's Islamic laws. His trial started last week and he confessed to becoming a Christian 16 years ago. If convicted, he could be executed.
But prosecutor Sarinwal Zamari said questions have been raised about his mental fitness.
"We think he could be mad. He is not a normal person. He doesn't talk like a normal person," he told The Associated Press.
Moayuddin Baluch, a religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, said Rahman would undergo a psychological examination.
"Doctors must examine him," he said. "If he is mentally unfit, definitely Islam has no claim to punish him. He must be forgiven. The case must be dropped."
It was not immediately clear when he would be examined or when the trial would resume. Authorities have barred attempts by the AP to see Rahman and he is not believed to have a lawyer.
A Western diplomat in Kabul and a human rights advocate — both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter — said the government was desperately searching for a way to drop the case because of the reaction it has caused.
The United States, Britain and other countries that have troops in Afghanistan have voiced concern about Rahman's fate.
The Bush administration Tuesday issued a subdued appeal to Kabul to let Rahman practice his faith in safety. German Roman Catholic Cardinal Karl Lehmann said the trial sent an "alarming signal" about freedom of worship in Afghanistan.
The case is believed to be the first of its kind in Afghanistan and highlights a struggle between religious conservatives and reformists over what shape Islam should take there four years after the ouster of the fundamentalist Taliban regime.
Afghanistan's constitution is based on Shariah law, which is interpreted by many Muslims to require that any Muslim who rejects Islam be sentenced to death. The state-sponsored Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has called for Rahman to be punished, arguing he clearly violated Islamic law.
The case has received widespread attention in Afghanistan where many people are demanding Rahman be severely punished.
"For 30 years, we have fought religious wars in this country and there is no way we are going to allow an Afghan to insult us by becoming Christian," said Mohammed Jan, 38, who lives opposite Rahman's father, Abdul Manan, in Kabul. "This has brought so much shame."
Rahman is believed to have converted from Islam to Christianity while working as a medical aid worker for an international Christian group helping Afghan refugees in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.
He then moved to Germany for nine years before returning to Kabul in 2002, after the ouster of the hard-line Taliban regime.
Police arrested him last month after discovering him in possession of a Bible during questioning over a dispute for custody of his two daughters. Prosecutors have offered to drop the charges if Rahman converts back to Islam, but he has refused.
___
Associated Press correspondent Amir Shah contributed to this report.
I did see a videoclip of Rahman being interrogated by his Islamist prosecutors; the videoclip is in Dutch which I don't understand, but Rahman's facial gestures and demeanor do not convince me that he is a Christian.
Why, oh why, did he return to Kabul after having lived nine years in Germany? That was crazy. And why should we expect that Rahman would be able to practice his faith in safety, knowing that Afghanistan is still controlled by Islamists? Afghanistan may be a democracy, but it is certainly not a liberal democracy because true individual liberty and sovereignty hardly exists. Afghanistan is 99% Muslim: in an Islamic-style democracy, the Sharia law prevails. Now if Rahman and his "fellow" Christians truly want to practice their faith in safety, they would either have to do it in caves or underground like the ancient Christians used to do, or feign their lunacy.
Here's something to talk about. Reuters reports:
Canada's high court allows Sikh daggers in school
By Randall PalmerThu Mar 2, 1:09 PM ET
Multiculturalism and religious freedom trumped safety concerns in a Canadian Supreme Court decision on Thursday that will allow orthodox Sikh students to carry traditional daggers to school.
In its decision, the court noted that Sikh orthodoxy requires the wearing of the daggers, known as kirpans, even though they are banned from airplanes and some courtrooms.
"Religious tolerance is a very important value of Canadian society," Justice Louise Charron wrote in reasons for the decision after a court case that involved 12-year-old Gurbaj Singh Multani (in photo) who was prevented from carrying his kirpan at a Montreal school.
"If some students consider it unfair that Gurbaj Singh may wear his kirpan to school while they are not allowed to have knives in their possession, it is incumbent on the schools to discharge their obligation to instill in their students this value that is ... at the very foundation of our democracy."
Kirpans are already allowed in Ontario after a lower court order, as is the case in some other parts of Canada. Thursday's ruling now opens the door to the practice, with possible restrictions, across the country.
Canada banned kirpans on airplanes after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. Some courts ban them as well, although Sikhs attending the Supreme Court hearing were allowed to wear them.
Charron said aircraft were unique environments, but schools had the ability to better control different situations.
Multani's school had originally allowed him to carry his kirpan in a wooden sheath sewn inside a cloth envelope inside his clothing. But the school board overturned this, and the boy's father turned to the courts.
His kirpan is about 20 cm (8 inches) long, with the blade roughly half that length, but kirpans can be longer.
The Quebec government argued unsuccessfully for zero tolerance for weapons in school, and some parents also opposed the idea.
"My first reaction as a parent is a feeling of insecurity," Claude Bouchard, a board member of the Quebec Federation of Parents' Committees, told Reuters after the decision. "As a parent, is the life and safety of a child more important than religious freedom? I think so."
Charron said the boy had no history of violence, and rejected the idea that kirpans are inherently dangerous. She also noted that schools contained other objects that could be used as weapons, such as scissors or baseball bats.
Orthodox Sikhs have been been required to carry kirpans since the 1600s. Some say the original purpose was for defense but many insist it is not a weapon.
Multani is now 16 and about to graduate from school, but he told reporters in the foyer of the Supreme Court the battle was worth it.
"Everybody should stand for their rights. I got it. I'm happy," he said, wearing a black turban and surrounded by numerous Sikh supporters.
Sikhs struggled for the right to wear turbans while in uniform with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. That episode was decided by the federal government in 1990.
Around 250,000 Sikhs live in Canada, and about 10 percent of them are considered orthodox.
In the United States, a federal appeals court allowed kirpans in California, but the U.S. Supreme Court has not decreed a national policy.
After the Sikhs, who's next? Palestinian Jihadists who believe that carrying explosives is a religious obligation? What about looney Pentecostals who wear poisonous snakes around their necks? And finally, what about the religious right of some secular humanists to be offended and feel threatened by the kirpan, the explosives and the snakes?
More and more young Italian women are attracted to the religious life and are becoming nuns. The Christian Science Monitor reports:
In 2003, Cristina Pavone, left her Dublin, Ireland, apartment, her boyfriend, and her steady job with Hertz Rent-a-Car, and went home to Italy to join a Franciscan order. Last summer, she took her final vows and became a cloistered nun.
Today, Sister Cristina, 31, lives with 179 other monks and nuns at a small red-brick monastery north of Rome. She reads, does chores, meets visitors, and prays five times daily, starting at 3 a.m.
"I was far from God," she says quietly, wrapping her hands around a hot mug in the monastery's drafty dining hall. "I experimented with everything you can experiment with to find happiness. Now that I've left everything, I've found everything."
She isn't alone in her devotion. A small but burgeoning group of young Italians are turning to Catholicism with new fervor, suggesting a reversal of Catholicism's decades-long decline in Italy.
Read the entire article here.
A certain Sister Ilaria thinks that the "young Italians' misguided pursuit of happiness has led to a crisis of values" and that "all young people seek happiness. Unfortunately, the world offers a happiness that ends quickly, like candy melting in your mouth."
What is the difference between Sister Ilaria's reasoning and that of a young Palestinian suicide-bomber wannabe?
Finally, something that I have been waiting for the Vatican to say:
Vatican to Muslims: practice what you preach
By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor, Thu Feb 23, 12:55 PM ET
After backing calls by Muslims for respect for their religion in the Mohammad cartoons row, the Vatican is now urging Islamic countries to reciprocate by showing more tolerance toward their Christian minorities.
Roman Catholic leaders at first said Muslims were right to be outraged when Western newspapers reprinted Danish caricatures of the Prophet, including one with a bomb in his turban. Most Muslims consider any images of Mohammad to be blasphemous.
After criticizing both the cartoons and the violent protests in Muslim countries that followed, the Vatican this week linked the issue to its long-standing concern that the rights of other faiths are limited, sometimes severely, in Muslim countries.
Vatican prelates have been concerned by recent killings of two Catholic priests in Turkey and Nigeria. Turkish media linked the death there to the cartoons row. At least 146 Christians and Muslims have died in five days of religious riots in Nigeria.
"If we tell our people they have no right to offend, we have to tell the others they have no right to destroy us," Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's Secretary of State (prime minister), told journalists in Rome.
"We must always stress our demand for reciprocity in political contacts with authorities in Islamic countries and, even more, in cultural contacts," Foreign Minister Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo told the daily Corriere della Sera.
Reciprocity -- allowing Christian minorities the same rights as Muslims generally have in Western countries, such as building houses of worship or practicing religion freely -- is at the heart of Vatican diplomacy toward Muslim states.
Vatican diplomats argue that limits on Christians in some Islamic countries are far harsher than restrictions in the West that Muslims decry, such as France's ban on headscarves in state schools.
Saudi Arabia bans all public expression of any non-Muslim religion and sometimes arrests Christians even for worshipping privately. Pakistan allows churches to operate but its Islamic laws effectively deprive Christians of many rights.
Both countries are often criticized at the United Nations Human Rights Commission for violating religious freedoms.
"ENOUGH TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK"
Pope Benedict signaled his concern on Monday when he told the new Moroccan ambassador to the Vatican that peace can only be assured by "respect for the religious convictions and practices of others, in a reciprocal way in all societies."
He mentioned no countries by name. Morocco is tolerant of other religions, but like all Muslim countries frowns on conversion from Islam to another faith.
Iraqi Christians say they were well treated under Saddam Hussein's secular policies, but believers have been killed, churches burned and women forced to wear Muslim garb since Islamic groups gained sway after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Christians make up only a tiny fraction of the population in most Muslim countries. War and political pressure in recent decades have forced many to emigrate from Middle Eastern communities dating back to just after the time of Jesus.
As often happens at the Vatican, lower-level officials have been more outspoken than the Pope and his main aides.
"Enough now with this turning the other cheek! It's our duty to protect ourselves," Monsignor Velasio De Paolis, secretary of the Vatican's supreme court, thundered in the daily La Stampa. Jesus told his followers to "turn the other cheek" when struck.
"The West has had relations with the Arab countries for half a century, mostly for oil, and has not been able to get the slightest concession on human rights," he said.
Bishop Rino Fisichella, head of one of the Roman universities that train young priests from around the world, told Corriere della Sera the Vatican should speak out more.
"Let's drop this diplomatic silence," said the rector of the Pontifical Lateran University. "We should put pressure on international organizations to make the societies and states in majority Muslim countries face up to their responsibilities."
Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited.I love Monsignor Velasio De Paolis: "Enough now with this turning the other cheek! It's our duty to protect ourselves." Right on, dude! It's better to be slapped by another Christian who would later realize his error than by an Islamonazi who's determined to kill you if you don't convert to Islam. And if those Muslims in Europe don't get their act together, maybe it's time to launch a new crusade.
