20 Mar Afghan Man Faces Execution for Converting to Christianity
Voice of America reports that an Afghan man, Abdul Rahman, is facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity from Islam, a capital offense under Afghanistan’s Islamic law. The case points to an fundamental tension in the new Afghan constitution. On the one hand, the constitution declares Afghanistan an “Islamic Republic” (Ch. 1, Art. 2) and prohibits the enactment or enforcement of any law “contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam” (Ch. 1, Art. 3). On the other hand, the constitution also provides that “[f]ollowers of other religions are free to exercise their faith and perform their religious rites within the limits of the provisions of law” (Ch. 1, Art. 2) and requires the state to “abide by… the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” — whose Article 18 specifically protects “the freedom to change [one’s] religion or belief.” Prosecutors have avoided Article 2 by charging Rahman with rejecting Islam, not with practicing Christianity. How they can get around the Universal Declaration is less clear.
It will be interesting to see what President Karzai does if Rahman is sentenced to death. As the VOA story notes, a death sentence would put Karzai in a no-win situation: if he overturned the sentence, he would anger hard-line religious groups that want to make an example of Rahman; but if he upheld the sentence, he could jeopardize his standing with western governments and human-rights groups.
It will also be interesting to see how President Bush would react to a death sentence. As a born-again Christian, he would clearly be troubled by the idea of someone being executed for practicing Christianity. Yet overtly opposing the execution would call attention to the fact that the Afghan constitution is not exactly “one of the most enlightened Constitutions in the Islamic world,” as Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Afghanistan, has called it. And it could alienate Karzai, one of Bush’s last remaining allies in the Middle East.
More on the story as it develops.
Readers wanting some background/context here should consult Mashood A. Baderin’s excellent book, International Human Rights and Islamic Law (OUP, 2003), especially pp. 118-125 dealing with the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as the question of apostasy.
[Copied from Prawfsblawg] Kevin: There are a number of interpretive questions the Afghan courts will have to answer before they even reach the compatibility of the provisions you list. The Qur’an does not prescribe a penalty for apostasy; the idea that death is an appropriate punishment comes from several sayings (hadith) of Muhammad. So one question is whether, for the purposes of constitutional law, “the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam” encompass hadith or only the Qur’an. If hadith are included, the second question is how the courts should interpret them. For instance, the most detailed hadith on apostasy is permissive: it says that no Muslim may be killed unless he or she “reverts from Islam and leaves the Muslims.” It does not say such a person must be killed, and indicates that some further act of disassociation must occur. A sub-question is how to interpret multiple hadith on the same topic. In this case, the more detailed hadith should arguably trump other sayings which use mandatory language (“kill whoever changes his religion”) that seems imprecise (obviously Muhammad did not mean that converts to Islam should be killed). Finally, the Afghan courts will have to decide whether… Read more »