Christian Afghan fears for life if deported <--- Yes Muslims threaten their own apostates
Adhabuhu
not a relic of history, but is very real today. And it's a positive
development that the appeals court is actually taking this seriously.
"Christian Afghan fears for life if deported," from Knight Ridder, with
thanks to Twostellas:
The cabdriver from Minneapolis is fighting deportation to Afghanistan over a
visa violation and says he could end up dead there for his apostasy. His
sister, also a Christian, was killed by radicals for that very reason, he
argues.
KANSAS CITY - For those with faith, the moment of acceptance often is clear
and simple.
Years after his conversion to Christianity, Ahmad Ahmadshah, 43, a
Minneapolis cabdriver, explained that moment to a U.S. immigration judge.
Ahmadshah described how he had received a Bible from friends in Pakistan and
read it in secret at his home near Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1988.
"I read a book, and my heart accepted," Ahmadshah said. "I believe that this
is the book that says the truth."
Today, Ahmadshah is convinced that his faith could cost him his life.
He has lived in the United States since 1996, but U.S. immigration
authorities are trying to deport him for visa violations - despite evidence
that his sister was killed for her Christian faith in 1993 by religious
soldiers answering to a warlord still active in Afghanistan.
This month, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made Ahmadshah's
deportation less certain. A three-judge panel threw out an order from the
U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals, which had rejected his application for
asylum.
The judges ordered immigration judges to reconsider his case, taking into
account how apostates - Muslims who reject Islam - are treated in
Afghanistan.
"The murder of Ahmadshah's sister points to a pattern of violence
perpetrated against Christian converts and was coupled with a threat
directed at Ahmadshah himself," the appeals court wrote.
Experts say that despite the reforms of President Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan
remains a conservative country, committed to an interpretation of Islamic
law that makes apostasy a capital crime.
As immigration judges struggle to keep up with an increasing tide of
deportations following the terrorism attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the fine
distinctions of how culture and religion can clash are sometimes lost, said
one immigration lawyer.
"Not all immigration judges are going to understand the nuances of asylum
cases for every country and every religion," said David Leopold, an Ohio
lawyer on the board of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Speaking through a translator from his lawyer's office in Minneapolis,
Ahmadshah said that by rejecting Islam he simply cannot return to Kabul.
"It is 99 percent Muslim," Ahmadshah said. "People would harm you. ... It's
very hard."
Remembering Lala
Ahmadshah weeps when he speaks about his younger sister Lala. They hid their
interest in Christianity from everyone, even their parents, he said.
"I started to talk to her about the Bible," Ahmadshah said. "She began
reading and accepted it too."
According to court records, an errant rocket struck their home in April
1993, killing their parents while he and Lala were away. Two days later,
armed men sorted through the rubble and found Ahmadshah's Bible, with his
and his sister's names written inside.
The armed men reported to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghan warlord wanted by
the Karzai government for war crimes.
Ahmadshah said they beat and pistol-whipped him, saying that if they ever
saw him with a Bible, they would kill him. Ahmadshah immediately went into
hiding. He soon learned from a cousin that the men had killed his sister
because of her conversion to Christianity.
While U.S. government lawyers conceded that Ahmadshah's account is credible,
they argued that his belief that Lala was killed for her religion is
speculative.
They also contended that he was not entitled to stay in the United States,
because the death of his sister and the beating did not rise to the level of
persecution, and conditions in Afghanistan had improved.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to discuss Ahmadshah's case because
it is in litigation.
After his sister's death, Ahmadshah moved to Pakistan and then to St.
Petersburg, Russia, where he worked for three years as a clothing merchant.
He entered the United States in 1993.
According to court records, he has worked steadily since then, paying his
taxes, maintaining a spotless arrest record and joining a church in
Minneapolis. He was baptized in January 2001, attends church weekly and has
documented about $500 in donations to the congregation.
But because he did not marry an Afghan woman whose name appeared on his
entry visa, he does not qualify for permanent residency status. Federal
officials moved to deport him.
After being questioned at an asylum hearing about the finer points of
Christian doctrine, an immigration judge concluded that Ahmadshah had not
demonstrated adequate commitment to the faith.
That procedure troubled the appeals court judges.
"Even if Ahmadshah did not have a clear understanding of Christian doctrine,
this is not relevant to his fear of persecution," they wrote this month.
"Under (Islamic) law, it is apostasy - the rejection of Islam - and not
conversion that is punishable. If Ahmadshah has shown that Afghans would
believe that he was an apostate, that is sufficient basis for fear of
persecution under the law."
M. Ashraf Haidari, a spokesman for the Afghan Embassy in Washington, said
recently that should Ahmadshah return, he had nothing to fear from the
government, which is encouraging the return of expatriate Afghans of all
ethnic backgrounds and religious beliefs.
Haidari acknowledged, however, that Ahmadshah might face discrimination from
people.
"There might be instances of targeting people who do not believe in Islam,"
Haidari said.
Abdalla Idris Ali, an Islamic scholar and director of the Center for Islamic
Education in Kansas City, said the legal issue of apostasy is a complex and
controversial one with which governments throughout the Muslim world
struggle.
Reactions of individual communities would vary widely, Ali said.
"The local community might consider it an offense, and that's where I would
be concerned."
In an e-mail interview, the director of an American charity working in Kabul
said Ahmadshah might face serious problems should he return to Afghanistan.
The charity director asked that he not be identified by name or
organization, to protect him and his workers.
"In today's Afghanistan, I am sure that the Karzai government would not
support a death penalty for apostasy," he wrote. "But there are some very
conservative elements in the country who might feel it their obligation to
take things into their own hands
Fair and Balanced
killing Muslims for apostasy is all just a myth.
Apparently 1MAN4ALL is purposely lying to non-Muslims - the way the Islamic
madrasas taught him - in order to deceive non-Muslims and further the
propaganda of Islam.
"Adhabuhu" <Adha...@jehannama.com> wrote in message
news:4230cc8f$1...@alt.athenanews.com...
1MAN4ALL
Fair and Balanced wrote:
> 1MAN4ALL laughed and tried to convince me that all this talk about
Muslims
> killing Muslims for apostasy is all just a myth.
>
> Apparently 1MAN4ALL is purposely lying to non-Muslims - the way the
Islamic
> madrasas taught him - in order to deceive non-Muslims and further the
> propaganda of Islam.
What I had stated or meant was that in no Islamic country apostasy is a
capital crime. If there are extremists who take law into their own
hands, that's a different matter and that sort of thing can happen
anywhere.
Regarding the article that the 'forger' had posted, it sounds like a
typical case of an asylum seeker exaggerating conditions in his home
country in order to stay in the US.
I do have some knowledge of how this process works, as I was once
friends with an immigration attorney. An asylum seeker arrives in the
US and claims to be a member of a persecuted minority. So the burden is
on him to prove that if he is deported, his life would be in danger. He
then hires a lawyer who must prove to an immigration judge that human
rights conditions in his client's home country are awful: he calls
professors or so-called international experts around the country and
tries to find at least one who can testify that if his client is sent
back, he can face persecution or even death. Keep in mind that there
are always some groups in the United States whose agenda is to prove
that a particular country or region has deplorable human rights, and
they are more than happy to assist. For them, the asylum seeker becomes
a useful witness against his former country/region/religion. So it's
essentially the confluence of such interests that one needs to be aware
of.
Immigration judges hear these cases all day and they are not always
sure who to beleive. In the article, it is stated: "While U.S.
government lawyers conceded that Ahmadshah's account is credible, they
argued that his belief that Lala [his sister] was killed for her
religion is speculative... After being questioned at an asylum hearing
about the finer points of Christian doctrine, an immigration judge
concluded that Ahmadshah had not demonstrated adequate commitment to
the faith...That procedure troubled the appeals court judges. 'Even if
Ahmadshah did not have a clear understanding of Christian doctrine,
this is not relevant to his fear of persecution,' they wrote this
month."
Based on this, two points can be made:
1. Immigration judges are not convinced that Ahmadsha's sister was
killed because of her beliefs. He left Afghanistan in 1990 (four years
before the Taliban came to power) at a time when a civil war was going
in Afghanistan, women were being abducted and killed. So it's difficult
to establish whether religion was the prime motive in that murder.
2. It doesn't seem that Ahmadshah understands Christianity, even though
it is claimed he has attended church weekly and contributed money. It
is an open secret among illegal immigrants that the best way to get a
Green Card is to join a church, as churches have political muscle and
can provide free legal assistance. Catholic charities even boast full
fledged legal services, and they look out for people like Ahmadshah. So
it is very possible that it was simply a conversion of convenience.
It must also be noted that immigration judges enforce immigration
policy which is not totally unbiased. A lot depends on an immigrant's
country's relationship with the US. If the US government has been
trying to prove that a particular country persecutes its minority, more
asylum seeks are admitted and any sob story is accepted as true, as
these people can be used for propaganda purposes. If the foreign
country has a friendly regime with an unruly populace, immigration
judges are more reluctant to grant asylum.
Ahmadshah's case was put in perspective by M. Ashraf Haidari, a
spokesman for the Afghan Embassy in Washington, who was quoted in the
same article as saying, "that should Ahmadshah return, he had nothing
to fear from the government, which is encouraging the return of
expatriate Afghans of all ethnic backgrounds and religious beliefs.
Haidari acknowledged, however, that Ahmadshah might face discrimination
from people." But that can happen anywhere. I can give you countless
examples of people who have been ostracized in non-Muslim countries
such as India or China because they converted to Islam or Christianity.