A recent crackdown on Christianity apparently is continuing
in the strict Islamic world of Afghanistan.
Ruling Taliban authorities arrested 35 more Afghan aid workers
earlier this month. Thus far, more than 50 Afghans have been jailed by the strict
regime since early August on suspicion of aiding covert Christian missionary
work.
A recent crackdown on Christianity apparently is continuing
in the strict Islamic world of Afghanistan.
Ruling Taliban authorities arrested 35 more Afghan aid workers
earlier this month. Thus far, more than 50 Afghans have been jailed by the strict
regime since early August on suspicion of aiding covert Christian missionary
work.
International aid workers say at least 35 Afghans employed
by the recently-banned International Assistance Mission were taken into custody
when they came to get their final salary payment.
Sources said a state-run radio broadcast had ordered Afghan
staffers of the banned agency to come and collect their pay.
“When the Afghans showed up, they were arrested,”
Associated Press reported.
In an Associated Press of Pakistan story, an expatriate aid
worker said she knew of some 15 to 17 Afghan employees of International Assistance
Mission who had been arrested since the Christian relief group was shut down
on August 31.
“They were taken into custody during the first week of
September and have not been seen since then,” the worker said.
A private volunteer agency that had 117 persons working in
five Afghan cities, International Assistance Mission had employed some 300 Afghans
in its projects.
Its entire foreign staff was expelled from the country at the
end of August.
The Taliban has accused the group and another Christian agency,
SERVE, of links with the Shelter Now relief organization, which was shut down
in early August for allegedly trying to convert Muslim Afghans to Christianity.
The regimes religious police arrested eight foreigners and 16 Afghans
working for Shelter Now.
A senior Taliban official told Associated Press last week that
some of the 16 Afghans working for Shelter Now would be either sentenced to
life in jail or death by hanging. Afghans involved in teaching the local languages
to the foreigners were the most endangered, sources indicated.
A Taliban official noted that any Afghan convicted of converting
to Christianity would be given three days to recant and return to Islam. But
even if spared the death penalty for repenting, the defendant would face other
punishments for “betraying their religion and traditions,” the official
said.
Although the Taliban claim to have “strong evidence”
that Shelter Nows foreign staff were preaching Christianity, they have
not presented proof that any Afghans actually had converted.
Taliban officials continue to sidestep the death penalty possibility
that hangs over the foreigners and their Afghan workers. “If the crime
is worthy of imprisonment, they will be imprisoned,” Chief Justice Noor
Mohammed Saqib of the Taliban Supreme Court said recently. “If the crime
is worthy of hanging, they will be hanged.”
Meanwhile, some 12 foreign journalists covering the trial of
the eight foreign Christians were barred from leaving their hotel one day last
week. Their rooms also were searched for cameras, film and videos.
Taliban authorities said the journalists were being punished
for taking photographs of the foreign defendants when they appeared in court.
It was the first time the six women and two men had appeared in public since
they were taken into custody.
Several Afghan interpreters also were detained, reportedly
for failing to stop their foreign charges from taking pictures.
Meanwhile, the four Germans, two Australians and two Americans
under investigation were accompanied to court by relatives and a diplomatic
representative from each of their countries on September 8, where for the first
time they heard the charges filed against them.
“We have not had a chance to defend ourselves,” said
German George Taub-mann, one of the prisoners. “It is simply not true.
We have not converted anybody. We are shocked about all the accusations.”
The United Nations reports that some 250 foreign aid workers
are overseeing relief operations that employ at least 20,000 Afghans across
the country.
Afghans have coveted the chance to work for Western aid organizations.
But the recent crackdown has made them nervous about even being seen in public
with any foreigner, observers say.
“Friendship with infidels is forbidden,” Saqib intoned
during a recent sermon at Pul-e-Khishti mosque in Kabul.
The judge sternly warned the Muslim faithful to stay away from non-Muslim “infidels,”
declaring they were evil and trying to destroy their faith. (Compass Direct)