Yes, they were. If you accept sharia, which is what one does in an Islamic "conversion," you cannot possibly accept Western principles. Many people throughout history have died rather than renounce their principles by publicly adhering to their opposite.
Who knows what any of us would do if actually living through such a situation? But facing life with the idea firmly in mind in advance that it does not matter what you adhere to, what you say, what you do, so long as you survive with your destroyed, emasculated integrity dooms you to failure at the very beginning. I have been very surprised by the many people on this forum who say that they would say or do anything, no matter how it violated what they believed, if it let them survive.
Remember, these guys hadn't even been seriously tortured; they were afraid, threatened, and simply decided to do an end-run around the whole problem because to them it wasn't particularly important anyway. If we all have that attitude, then prepare to have your kids grow up under sharia.
They did NOT accept sharia.
And we are not going to be living under sharia, or accepting it, either.
But facing life with the idea firmly in mind in advance that it does not matter what you adhere to, what you say, what you do, so long as you survive with your destroyed, emasculated integrity dooms you to failure at the very beginning.
Oh for Gawd's sake! You believe that any jack-leg with a gun pointed at your head forces you to compromise your integrity?
This was a phony situation, a phony, coerced "conversion," and it was publicly renounced the minute Centani and Wieg got in front of a microphone.
Neither man has any reason to feel "emasculated" for not supplying blood for a bunch of renegade Islamists.