Afghan Christian to be freed

According to TIME.com Abdul Rahman, the Afghan Muslim who converted to Christianity will be freed. But

it was not in recognition of 'universal values' that Abdul Rahman was released. Instead, authorities cited insufficient evidence, insinuations about his mental state and even questions raised by the authorities over his citizenship. The legal basis for charging someone for converting from Islam to Christianity has not, thus far, been altered — the political confict that from having U.S. troops trying to protect a government that can't guarantee the right of its citizens to choose the same faith as the President of the United States has simply been kicked down the road. Not only that, the Abdul Rahman case has alerted the Evangelical Christian base of the Republican Party to the need to press the Bush Administration on the issue, and at the same time mobilized the conservative Muslim clerical establishment and the powerful Islamist politicians in Afghanistan's coalition government to defend their Sharia code.

It would serve them all right to have a religious war. But it wouldn't do the rest of us any good.

In the mean time, The Guardian reports the following.

Rahman is being held in a cell by himself next to the office of a senior prison guard, the warden [of the prison where he is being held] said. He showed the AP the outside of Rahman's cell door, but refused to allow reporters to speak to him or see him.

He said Rahman had been asking guards for a Bible but that they did not have any to give him.

Rahman, meanwhile, said he was fully aware of his choice and was ready to die for it, according to an interview published Sunday in an Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

``I am serene. I have full awareness of what I have chosen. If I must die, I will die,'' Abdul Rahman told the Rome daily, responding to questions sent to him via a human rights worker who visited him in prison.

``Somebody, a long time ago, did it for all of us,'' he added in a clear reference to Jesus.