Posted on 02/24/2005 8:45:21 PM PST by underlying
Afghan Christian says faith might cost him his life
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - (KRT) - For those with faith, the moment of acceptance often is clear and simple.
Years after his conversion to Christianity, Ahmad Ahmadshah, a 43-year-old 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 terror 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."
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 earlier 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 individuals.
"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."
John Sifton, a researcher on Afghanistan at Human Rights Watch, also said Ahmadshah might face persecution.
Even the U.S. government, which is seeking to deport Ahmadshah, has questioned how apostates are treated in Afghanistan.
In May 2003 a federal commission that advises the president and Congress on how best to promote religious liberty expressed grave reservations about how the Afghan judiciary would treat the crime of apostasy.
"Afghan jurists have stated that apostasy from Islam would be considered a capital offense, but have intimated that ways would be found to avoid the death penalty," wrote members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
In a follow-up study last year, commissioners found that progressive religious elements in the country were losing ground, even under a new, more liberal constitution.
Ahmadshah knows all of that from bitter experience. Asked what he missed the most about his home country, Ahmadshah again began to weep, and he spoke softly. His interpreter finally began to translate.
His parents and his sister, he said.
"He does not want to go back and face all the torture again," the translator said.
Ahmadshah is awaiting word from the immigration court as to when it will reconsider his application for asylum.
Hey, how did you do that?
Minor Miracle!
Thanks for posting that for me Dark Skies!
That looks just like my little Moe, the mother of Freckles. Same pretty yellow eyes.
I just hope some howling dog doesn't come along and object...after all, it is a waste of band width (whatever that means)...
sniff sniff
Freddie...you're a treasure...night, night...DS
thought I saw tracks in the snow...
Thanks for the ping!
Sending this man back to Afganistan would mean death. All available immigration from Islamic countries must be earmarked for Christians and Apostates.
Islam must be treated like Communism during the cold war. You don't take in Communists, but you help the dissidents.
Jan
You are welcome for the ping. "Observations"? LOL! That's putting it mildly. I quite agree with Fred Nerks - that is wonderfully insightful stuff. Earns you a place at the scholars' table, IMHO.
Providing a "vocabulary lesson" really breaks it down to the essential elements. Elements which, of course, are articles of faith. Ours and theirs - if indeed, as you highlighted, it is even a matter of belief for many of the adherents - as opposed to an enforced compulsion.
On initial review, I found this article to be primarily a human interest story having related elements of the P.R.O.P. contained within it. Looking closer, there is more - so much more!
Ernest Renan had it absolutely right. So do you, and so do the rest of us. It is praiseworthy how great a degree of clarity Christ has brought us as warriors in illuminating these points. Truly, iron does sharpen iron!
A.A.C.
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