Apostasy and the Rule of Law

Nunc Pro Lunch has linked to the story of Abdul Rahman’s safe arrival in Italy. He also gives some domestic details I wasn’t aware of — i.e., that Rahman’s wife turned him in:

1. His ex-wife denounces him as a convert to Christianity in the context of a bitter custody dispute.
2. Cops search his house and find a Bible.
2. The judge asks him if he is in fact a Christian.
3. He says that he is.

This reminds me of the bitter American divorce disputes when women would accuse fleeing husbands (sometimes rightly so) of abusing the children. There is no hate like the hatred of divorce. Of course, in Afghanistan, abuse of children is probably not up there in its level of seriousness with crimes like apostasy. So I presume she was working with what she had.

Aside from that, Uncle Pavian points out several facts which bear our attention:

This is what lawyers call “a prima facie case”. The Afghan authorities had him dead to rights on what is a capital offense in Afghanistan, and in the normal course of events he would have been beheaded, hanged, had a wall pushed over on him, or something. Instead, the Afghan judicial system caved in to international pressure and dropped the charges.

This is good for Brother Rahman, and good for the future of relations between the United States and Afghanistan, and good for the concept of freedom of religion.

However, as he says, this plucking of Abdul Rahman out of the lion’s den does not bode well for the rule of law, which was gotten round in these proceedings. According to Sharia Law, Abdul is guilty and should die. As Uncle Pavian says:

So long as Islam is a religion that has to [kill] its adherents to keep them from leaving, Muslims will bear the burden of demonstrating that they are not barbarians.

That is the Gordian knot which ties Sharia Law into a thicket of brutality the rest of the world fails to comprehend. Praise Allah all you want, but don’t murder your people for thought crimes.

The Chinese face the same chasm in understanding from the rest of the world when they persecute the Falun Gong. However, they --much like their Iranian friends -- don't worry about such matters. Neither is running in the democracy sweepstakes.