Rahman One Among Many Persecuted Converts, Says Religious Freedom Expert
A religious freedom expert is urging people to keep in mind the countless number of persecuted Christian coverts worldwide who face death under their country’s laws on apostasy.
For some, the Afghan Christian convert story ended with the release of 41-year-old Abdul Rahman. However, a religious freedom expert is urging people to keep in mind the countless number of persecuted Christian coverts worldwide who face death under their country’s laws on apostasy.
Dr. Paul Marshall, a senior fellow at Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom, says that there are many apostates in similar situations to Rahman that the world is ignoring in an article titled “Apostates from Islam” appearing in the Apr. 10 issue of The Weekly Standard. Marshall fears that the world will forget about converts similar to Rahman now that he has been granted asylum in Italy.
“Abdul Rahman's plight is merely the tip of the iceberg,” writes Marshall in the article. “Like the violence over the Danish cartoons of Muhammad, or the Ayatollah Khomeini's demand that Salman Rushdie be killed for blasphemy, it reveals a systematic, worldwide attempt by Islamists to imprison, kill, or otherwise silence anyone who challenges their ideology.”
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As example that the case of the convert is not a unique situation, the religious freedom expert points out that two other Afghan converts to Christianity were arrested in March while other converts in February had their homes raided by police.
Furthermore, other Muslim countries have similar laws to Afghanistan, including Saudia Arabia, which has executed people for the crimes of apostasy, heresy, and blasphemy in the last ten years. The death penalty for apostates is also the legal punishment in Iran, Sudan, Mauritania, and the Comoros Islands, notes Marshall.
According to the senior fellow, the Islamic Republic of Iran “[engages] in a systematic campaign to track down and reconvert or kill those who have changed their religion from Islam” in the 1990s.
Protestant leaders were among those targeted by death squads in Iran.
Although Egypt has no laws against apostasy, the North African country has laws against “insulting Islam” or “creating sectarian strife.” Reports indicate that in 2003, Egyptian security forces arrested 22 converts and the people who helped them. Some were tortured.
Marshall points out that the killing of apostates by state-order is rarer than deaths caused by vigilantes, mobs, and family members. Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Palestinian areas, Turkey, Nigeria, Indonesia, Somalia, and Kenya have all had reports of vigilantes threatened, beaten, or killed.
Muslims who are seen as questioning restrictive interpretations of Islam are also victims of violence in the Muslim world.
“We need to go beyond the individual case of Abdul Rahman and push for genuine religious freedom throughout the Muslim world,” says Marshall, expressing the need to push for the elimination of laws against apostasy, blasphemy, heresy, and "insulting Islam."
“They seek to place dominant, reactionary interpretations of Islam beyond all criticism,” he writes in conclusion. “Thus—since politics and religion are intertwined—they seek to make political freedom impossible.”
In a recent interview with The Christian Post, Dr. Ergun Caner of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in Lynchburg, Va., also noted the absence of religious freedom in the Muslim world, claiming that “Islam never ever embraces religious freedom – ever.”
“That is fundamental for understanding especially with all the arguments on Iraq,” the former Sunni Muslim and son of a Muslim scholar said.
“If Iraq succeeds – which I pray it does – it will be the first time in 1,300 years of history that Muslims have allowed for freedom of conscience, for freedom of beliefs,” he added.
