"You think that's a simple path? For the rest of their lives, they'll be living under a death sentence for apostasy."
Nonsense. God knows what these men were going through and, assuming they are Christian, he knows they didn't deny Christ.
Through their actions, they showed the cheap unworthyness of radical Islam. Under these circumstances, for them to martyr themselves would have been even more unworthy.
It's not nonsense - the penalty for apostasy from islam is death. If they renounce these conversions, they'll have to spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders for a fanatic muslim who's carrying that sentence out. And he may not be real careful to avoid killing their families along with them. Or, they can live out their lives as faithful muslims, which certainly IS denying Christ. Pretty crappy choice either way. I hope other newsies will take a lesson from this.