Spiegel Online on Christians in Afghanistan

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

Spiegel Online has an interesting report, published on March 30, about the plight of Afghan converts to Christianity. The lead paragraph succinctly captures their very real -- and completely justified -- fear of persecution: "Afghan converts to Christianity lead dangerous lives and must keep their faith secret to avoid persecution by police, Islamists or even their own neighbors. Members of this secret society have to constantly keep looking over their shoulders."

The article centers around an interview with a 36-year-old man known as "Hashim Kabar" (not his real name, for obvious reasons), who converted to Christianity twenty years ago. Kabar describes the extreme measures he and the community of converts to Christianity are forced to take to hide their new faith:

Kabar is forced to renounce his core identity every day. There is an Islamic name on his business card, although privately he carries the name of one of the apostles. Only his family and his closest friends know his secret. Sometimes, he says, he has to act as if he is praying to Allah. "If business associates come to my house and suddenly want to pray, I have to go along," he says, adding that he only hopes his God understands. . . .

Nothing can happen in the open, and Kabar and his fellow believers hold their worship services on different days of the week. "It would be too dangerous to do it on Sunday, because it would be easy for them to observe us." Converts are contacted just before a service is to take place, often by innocent-sounding mobile phone text messages. "We're having tea at 11 o'clock," is one that Kabar reads. The locations of services change constantly as well, and they are always held in private homes, where everything has to be prepared well in advance. The household staff must be away; neighbors mustn't notice anything; and everyone has to have the 100 percent trust of everyone else. It is too dangerous to even have a Bible at most services, says Kabar, who knows his prayers by heart. Police have come and searched his house three times already, but failed to find anything incriminating.

Kabar and other Christian converts in Afghanistan fear that in the wake of Abdul Rahman's release, Islamists may decide to take matters into their own hands and try to give apostates a taste of vigilante justice. The article closes with a plea from Kabar that is well worth keeping in mind: "According to Kabar, the worst thing would be if the resolution of the case leaves the impression that everything is now OK for converts living in Afghanistan. If that happens, he says, the case would have done more harm than good."

For further reading:

• My Daily Standard article "The New Roman Lions"
• Paul Marshall, "Apostates from Islam," from the April 10 issue of the Weekly Standard

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