FREE ABDUL RAHMAN

By Michelle Malkin

The latest...

The Washington Times weighs in.

Tony Perkins has an open letter to President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and to Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), the respective foreign affairs committee chairmen, over at Human Events:

On behalf of Family Research Council and the families we represent, thank you for your work in helping Afghanistan establish a genuine democracy. We also want to express our deep concern about reports that an Afghanistan citizen, Abdul Rahman, faces the prospect of the death penalty for converting to Christianity. According to press reports, Abdul became a Christian years ago, and during a custody dispute over his children was charged with converting to Christianity from Islam. Reports claim he is on trial and the prosecutor is seeking a death sentence. This trial belies any idea that Afghanistan, under its constitution, is committed to fundamental human rights. Such a trial is a flagrant violation of Article 18 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights—to which Article 7 of the Afghan Constitution mandates state adherence.

We believe that efforts to guarantee fundamental rights cannot be separated from freedom of religion. The action taken by Judge Ansarullah Mawlavizada has been condemned by numerous groups, and not just by Christian organizations. Prosecuting Adbul for converting to Christianity is wrong per se. In addition, allowing this trial to continue, and potentially to sentence Adbul to death, will confirm in the minds of radicals in that country that religious minorities are not protected by the Afghan Constitution. The potential devastation for religious freedom and other fundamental rights is staggering, not only in Afghanistan but in the broader Middle East as well.

The decision to topple the Taliban from power was just, and American and allied forces have died to achieve that goal. We are fighting now to defeat state-sponsored terrorism and surely that must mean we oppose state-practiced terrorism against its own citizens. The most recent reports that Abdul Rahman may be found unfit for trial due to mental illness do not alleviate our concern. The substitution of Soviet-style psychiatric repression for a more lethal form may be only death by slow-motion.

We ask you to redouble your efforts to ensure that Afghanistan guarantees fundamental rights and freedoms for every one of its citizens. We ask that you do everything in your power to protect the life of Abdul and all who choose to follow their own conscience.

Concerned Women for America:

Concerned Women for America (CWA) urges the Primary Court in Afghanistan to free Abdul Rahman, a man who has been charged with the death penalty for converting to Christianity.

“Americans have another opportunity to ensure that freedom is secure for Afghans,” said Wendy Wright, CWA’s President. “We pray that Afghanistan’s leaders will recognize that religious freedom is fundamental to a stable society.

“Abdul Rahman, along with every other Afghan citizen, deserves freedom of religion. The Bush administration issued an appeal yesterday requesting that Afghanistan allow this man to practice his faith in his country. Hopefully Afghanistan’s leaders will heed this appeal and recognize that democracy must be based on freedom if it is to succeed.

“The ruling of this case is pivotal in that it will set a precedent for all that follow. Abdul Rahman’s life is on trial and religious freedom for Afghanistan hangs in the balance. We offer our respect and admiration to Mr. Rahman for his courage. His unwavering conviction to take a stand for Christ is an example to us all. We call on Afghanistan to spare this man’s life and ensure all Afghans can enjoy religious liberty.

The United States Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission) “expressed grave concern about the situation facing Abdul Rahman.” Commission Chairman Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) stated, “I urge the Government of Afghanistan to abide by the international principles enshrined in its constitution and for the prosecutor to drop the charges against Mr. Rahman.”

Don't forget the rally for Abdul Rahman tomorrow in D.C. E-mail or track back if you're planning an event in your neighborhood.

Friday March 24
Noon to 1pm
Outside the Afghan Embassy
2341 Wyoming Ave NW.
Washington DC

More action items at Freedom's Zone.

Reader L.F. e-mails:

You should know that I just called the Afghan Embassy to register my disapproval (to put it mildly) about the Abdul Rahman case. I told the operator that I wanted to speak to someone about the case, and they put me through to a phone which, after ringing for a bit, brought me a recorded message that began: "This is Joshua Gross, the Public Relations Officer" of the Afghanistan Embassy. (An American accent.) Mr. Gross went on to say that if I was calling about Abdul Rahman, I should know that the embassy had received many phone calls about this case, and that they were working to resolve the situation, that there were currently investigations into Rahman's mental health that might resolve the situation, that they would see to it that the Afghan Constitution was followed, etc etc. It provided an email address, gross@theafghanistanembassy.org, for press inquiries, and the general embassy email address for all others. No ability to get through to an actual person.

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On the prospect of Rahman being diagnosed as mentally ill, John S. Ford, M.D., M.P.H., Assistant Professor of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, has a must-read post:

To me this is a very disturbing story. It seems that the provisional Afghan government is trying to find a manageable way out of a terrible public relations nightmare.

Apparently, their decision to prosecute a muslim for the crime of converting to Christianity has provoked worldwide revulsion. There is an obvious perception that their catastrophic disregard for religious freedom exposes the Afghani government as primitive and backwards.

Psychiatry to the rescue. As during many dark times in world history, a government is seeking respite through the misapplication and manipulation of science.

Rather than upset their constituency, the Afghani prosecution has engaged in the age-old deception of diagnosing mental illness when it serves the state's purposes. They have raised the possibility that the accused, Abdul Rahman, is insane and can therefore not be prosecuted under Islamic law.

How convenient.

Afghanistan avoids the global firestorm they've caused by executing someone for creating an affront to Islam. At the same time they evidence a facade of civility by refusing to prosecute this "poor" mentally impaired man.

To even imagine that this highly dubious notion will be adequately examined and that an accurate picture of his true psychological profile will be brought to light is laughable. Whether it's Afghanistan trying to defuse a political liability or the Soviet Union or China claiming that dissident political views constitute mental illness worthy of commitment, this perversion of science is wrong.

Everyone within the healing professions should decry this blatantly transparent abuse of the mental health discipline.

YALE'S SHAME

By Michelle Malkin

John Fund and Clinton Watson Taylor continue to break new ground on the blood-boiling story of the former Taliban spokesman at Yale.

Taylor digs up damning quotes from Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi and a telling photo:

Leave Islam, go to the gallows. That’s still the rule in Afghanistan, as we see in the sad case of Christian convert Abdul Rahman, on trial for his life there. (Michelle Malkin laid out his awful predicament in her column yesterday.) How is this still possible? Debbie Schlussel called the Afghani Embassy to ask that question and they laid the blame at the feet of “Mr. Shinwari, the Chief Justice, who is an old man and an intolerant Taliban remnant.”

It’s not the first time the Taliban has threatened Afghan Christians—or Americans—with execution. In late summer of 2001, as Al-Qaeda was planning their murderous venture, the Taliban was spinning their “trial” of eight foreign aid workers, including two Americans, and sixteen Afghan Christians whom they accused of secretly proselytizing—and who, it emerged, faced the death penalty.

How could the Taliban possibly justify such a barbaric practice? They didn’t really even try. According to Canadian Channel CTV, "Their priority was to propagate Christianity which they were not supposed to do here," as Sayed Rehmatullah Hashmi, an aide to the Taleban's foreign minister, told reporters.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! That name sounds familiar. Because the name of Yale’s prized “freshman” and former Taliban ambassador, Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, is a pretty close match.

But it couldn’t be the same guy. No, Yale’s tame Talib is a “moderate”, a man who regrets the harsh things he’s said in his past (if not the ideology he embraced), a poor little lamb who “escaped the wreckage of Afghanistan”, an earnest family man starting his life over. Yale’s Hashemi was no blustering theocrat, but according to Yale’s then-Dean of Admissions, “a person to be reckoned with and who could educate us about the world.'' Besides, the spelling is a little different, right? It could some other Taliban fellow, right?

After all, the spokesman who was justifying the trial and likely execution of the missionaries wasn’t a sweet, thoughtful fellow like Yale’s prize catch. That guy at the press conference was one sick puppy, holding up “evidence” of bloodguiltiness like—gasp—a child’s Bible! That guy even joked about the prisoners’ crimes as he played a videotape seized from an NGO that had employed the captives:

"O.K., turn it on," said Rehmatullah Hashmi, a foreign ministry official. A television set—itself a forbidden thing—brightened into life. A movie called Jesus appeared, its narrator extolling "the good news of the Virgin Mother and the Savior's birth." Soon, a young Jesus was on screen asking precocious questions of startled rabbis. "That's enough," said Mr. Hashmi, who tried some levity to accompany the grave accusations. "We have to put it off. Otherwise, we will also be proselytizing."

Ha, Ha. You might be proselytizing. And then you’d have to be executed, too! Hilarious.

Fund reports:

In justifying its grant of a place to Mr. Hashemi, Yale has cited his approval by the State Department. And Yale's sole official statement says it hopes "his courses help him understand the broader context for the conflicts that led to the creation of the Taliban and to its fall. . . . Universities are places that must strive to increase understanding." That justification is unsettling to two women who will join voices at Yale tonight. Natalie Healy lost her Navy SEAL son Dan in Afghanistan last year when a Taliban rocket hit his helicopter. Ms. Healy, who notes that her son had four children of his own, is appalled at Yale's new student. "Lots of people could benefit from a Yale education, so why reward this man who was part of the group that killed Dan?" she told me. "I want to tell [Yale President] Richard Levin that his not allowing ROTC on campus is one thing, but welcoming a former member of the Taliban is deeply insulting to families who have children fighting them right now."

Ten days ago Ms. Healy met Malalai Joya, a member of Afghanistan's parliament, when she spoke near her home in Exeter, N.H. Tonight, Ms. Joya will speak at Yale on behalf of the Afghan Women's Mission. She is appalled that many people have forgotten the crimes of the Taliban, and was surprised to hear that Mr. Hashemi, who, like her, is 27 years old, is attending Yale. "He should apologize to my people and expose what he and others did under the Taliban," she told me. "He knew very well what criminal acts they committed; he was not too young to know. It would be better if he faced a court of justice than be a student at Yale University."

Mr. Hashemi probably won't be attending Ms. Joya's lecture tonight. He has dodged reporters for three weeks, ever since his presence at Yale was revealed in a cover story in the New York Times Magazine. Some claim he has fully repented his Taliban past, but in his sole recent interview--with the Times of London--he acknowledged he'd done poorly in his class "Terrorism: Past, Present and Future," attributing that to his disgust with the textbooks: "They would say the Taliban were the same as al Qaeda." At the same time, Mr. Hashemi won't explain an essay he wrote late last year in which he called Israel "an American al Qaeda" aimed at the Arab world. When asked about the Taliban's public executions in Kabul's soccer stadium, he quipped: "There were also executions happening in Texas."

Question: Does the NYTimes plan on running a follow-up or will it just pretend the firestorm doesn't exist?

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Previous:

Nail Yale
The Three T's
Give Yale the finger
A Taliban mouthpiece goes to Yale

WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS OPERATION: TAKE NOTE

By: Pejman Yousefzadeh

When a non-Bush partisan like David Adesnik comes away at least somewhat impressed with the President's efforts at defending his Iraq policy, it may very well be an indication that the country at large is willing to listen to such a defense and be persuaded by it if it is given with passion, with reason, loudly and often.

I have said before and will say again that I am utterly puzzled by the White House's inability and/or unwillingness to take the issue of defending its Iraq policy and make it into a full time job. I have said before and will say again that I am utterly puzzled that no one in the White House appears to have decided that the President should give this kind of stump speech until the ears of his audience bleed from the repeated telling of it. That is how to ensure the successful transmission of a political message, after all. Instead, the White House seems content to wait until all and sundry is nearly rendered out of control regarding the political system before it gets the ball rolling on the issue of defending its policies.

From a purely political standpoint, this will not do. It is a failure of political savvy and as far as those who want to see a successful reconstruction effort in Iraq are concerned, it is a failure of leadership. If people on the White House staff are not properly doing their jobs and realizing that they need to make the delivery of such full-throated and passionate defenses a full time job, then they need to be replaced. And if the President of the United States has not yet come to the conclusion that he needs to give the kinds of speeches that at least partially impress David Adesnik more often, then someone needs to give him a stern talking-to about the political tin ear he suddenly seems to have developed.

SUPPORT DENMARK BUY LEGO

THE UNITED NATIONS SMEARS LEGO

By Michelle Malkin

Today is The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is celebrating the day with this vile poster portraying Denmark's most famous company as racist:

Your tax dollars at work.

Support Denmark. Buy LEGO.

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Some readers seem to be missing the context of this ad campaign and want to give the U.N. the benefit of the doubt. Writes E.:

You might be reaching a little to suppose that the UN meant to criticize Denmark in that poster on racism. I think it's a clever way a making a very good point about bigotry, that it's not always what we think it is. Let's not be hypersensitive and constantly seeking out imagined insults in our culture like the PC crowd does.

Please don't be naive.

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Question: What has the U.N. said or done about the Abdul Rahman case?

Answer: Nothing.

SADDAM PERSONALLY ORDERED CHEMICAL ATTACK ON KURDS

The Scotsman reports on a key piece of evidence that ties Saddam Hussein directly to the disgusting genocide of Kurds in Halabja almost twenty years ago. Memos from his personal secretary to military leaders make clear that Saddam wanted to use chemical weapons on Kurdish positions in 1987:

SADDAM Hussein ordered plans to be drawn up for a chemical weapons attack on Kurdish guerrilla bases in northern Iraq in 1987, according to a letter signed by his personal secretary. ...

The planned attack appears to have been part of the 1987-88 campaign that left more than 180,000 Kurds dead and demolished hundreds of Kurdish villages in northern Iraq. In the most notorious incident, the town of Halabja was bombed with mustard and nerve gas in 1988, killing 5,000 residents.

In the papers released by the US, a report from Iraq's military intelligence details the bases of Kurdish rebels, led by Ibrahim Barzani, and Iranian troops.

Saddam's secretary replies, saying, "The leader Mr President has ordered that your department study with experts a surprise attack with special ammunition in the areas of Barzani's gangs and the [former Iranian leader Ayatollah] Khomeini Guards."

"Special ammunition" is the phrase used throughout Saddam's regime for chemical weapons. Later documents mention specifically the nerve agent sarin and mustard gas.

One wonders how Saddam would respond to this. Regarding Dujail, he has claimed that the processes used to massacre the residents of the small town as a reprisal for an assassination attempt were legal under Iraqi law, a claim that has done little to slow his prosecution. For Halabja, observers widely predicted that his defense would claim ignorance of the attack until after it had already taken place -- a sort of reverse Nazi defense of "I didn't give the orders". This new evidence clearly shows that he gave those orders before, and probably on many other occasions, against the Iranians during their eight-year war as well as against his own people.

It's fashionable these days to claim that the Iraqis were better off under Saddam than after his liberation, given the civilian death toll from the fight against the insurgents. Some claim that over 100,000 Iraqis have died since the invasion, although the methodology for those calculations has been highly suspect. In two years, Saddam killed over 180,000 Kurds just for being Kurds, and destroyed their homes, forcing them to live in the hills to survive -- and that doesn't count the hundreds of thousands of Marsh Arabs, Shi'a, and even Sunnis who died either in droves in reprisals for suspected disloyalty or individually as Saddam and his henchmen desired. This letter reminds us that Iraqis and the world have all benefitted from the removal of this sick, twisted dictator.

A CHRISTIAN ON TRIAL

By Michelle Malkin

This story deserves much more attention than it's getting. Via VOA News (hat tip: Doug at Below the Beltway):

An Afghan man who recently admitted he converted to Christianity faces the death penalty under the country's strict Islamic legal system. The trial is a critical test of Afghanistan's new constitution and democratic government.

The case is attracting widespread attention in Afghanistan, where local media are closely monitoring the landmark proceedings.

Abdul Rahman, 40, was arrested last month, accused of converting to Christianity. Under Afghanistan's new constitution, minority religious rights are protected but Muslims are still subject to strict Islamic laws. And so, officially, Muslim-born Rahman is charged with rejecting Islam and not for practicing Christianity.

Appearing in court earlier this week Rahman insisted he should not be considered an infidel, but admitted he is a Christian. He says he still believes in the almighty Allah, but cannot say for sure who God really is. "I am," he says, "a Christian and I believe in Jesus Christ."

Rahman reportedly converted more than 16 years ago after spending time working in Germany. Officials say his family, who remain observant Muslims, turned him over to the authorities. On Thursday the prosecution told the court Rahman has rejected numerous offers to embrace Islam. Prosecuting attorney Abdul Wasi told the judge that the punishment should fit the crime.

He says Rahman is a traitor to Islam and is like a cancer inside Afghanistan. Under Islamic law and under the Afghan constitution, he says, the defendant should be executed. The court has ordered a delay in the proceedings to give Rahman time to hire an attorney. Under Afghan law, once a verdict is given, the case can be appealed twice to higher courts.

This is the first case in which the defendant has admitted to converting and is refusing to back down, even while facing the death penalty.

Here, via the Middle East Times, is the "evidence" against Rahman that may lead to his execution:

Supreme court judge Mawlavizada on March 19 holds a Bible that belongs to Abdul Rahman, who converted from Islam to Christianity. (REUTERS)

What do Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Bush have to say about the monstrous possibility that Rahman may be executed for professing faith in Jesus Christ and possessing a Bible?

So far, nothing.