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March 29, 2006
An interesting little dilemma - and a serious case of sloping shoulders!
It is supremely ironic that, in a country where we make a huge song and dance about extraditing criminals and terrorists to any country where they may face the death penalty or be subjected to what our civil liberties mob call "torture", we have shipped a man off to face a death penalty for his conversion from one religion to another. That "compassion" and "human right" to be given freedom from fear of "unnatural punishment" does not apparently apply to anyone who is under threat of death for changing his or her religion. The case in point is an Afghan man named Abdul Rahman, born in Afghanistan and raised as a Muslim, he converted to Christianity.
That is a crime for which the sentence is death under Muslim Sharia Law. It is not negotiable and not transmutable. Apostasy equals death - literally. Even foreswearing on one's conversion and reverting to Islam still leaves you facing other penalties.
So, when Mr Rahman fled to Britain and claimed asylum you would think that he would be afforded our much vaunted protection from injustice and "cruel and unusual punishment". You'd be wrong. After considering the case, our Whitehall Wankers decided that he wasn't under any such threat - and sent him back to Afghanistan to face the music. Not a murmur from Mrs Blair-Booth or any of the other members of the horde of "Civil Rights" campaigners. As for our Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the arch Apostate in all religions, Mr Straw, let us just say that he has lived up to his name and proved himself to be worthy of it in every respect.
The result was predictable, Mr Rahman was arrested on his return to Afghanistan and charged with Apostasy. It has taken the combined efforts of the US and a host of other national leaders to compel the Afghan President to make the court drop the case - but that does not necessarily mean the Mr Rahman is home free. He still faces the prospect of being hunted down and killed by any fanatic prepared to act on a fatwah issued against him by any Mullah who fancies making an example of him. He also faces the prospect of being declared insane by members of his family - citing as proof his conversion - and he will spend the rest of his life locked away in a lunatic asylum. Death by beheading would probably be preferable.
Is Whitehall in any way contrite about this situation? Of course not, it is, as ever, the "Rules" that made them do it. Nothing to do with us, we simply followed "The Rules". I seem to remember that plea being rejected at certain trials held in Nuremberg between 1945 and 1947. It was rejected then and it should be rejected utterly now.
If anything happens to Mr Rahman the Civil Servants and the Ministers involved should be charged with his murder. They simply cannot argue that they could not have known this would happen, they were fully aware - and still sent the man home. His "crime" in the eyes of Whitehall was undoubtedly his conversion to Christianity - that seems to be a crime punishable by death even in this country these days. Anyone of any "minority" persuasion engaged in real crime can expect the full protection of our law - but not if you are a Christian.
Posted by The Gray Monk at March 29, 2006 10:06 PM
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