I’m not generally one to promote call-in and write-in campaigns, but I think it’s vital that the U.S. administration, at all levels, understand the significance of the case of Abdul Rahman — the Afghan man standing trial and facing possible execution in Afghanistan for the crime of converting to Christianity. In particular, they must appreciate the significance of the case for people who have, to date, supported President Bush’s agenda of democratization in the Islamic world. I tend to think that President Bush himself would fully appreciate what’s going on here — as I said in my first post on the subject, I believe that this would be a red line issue for him. Nevertheless, we’ve seen instances lately where lower level officials didn’t appreciate the significance (in particular the political significance) of particular issues, with very negative consequences, and it’s crucial that no one be left in doubt about Abdul Rahman.

Therefore I reiterate the contact information from yesterday:

White House phone number:
202-456-1111. (I spoke to a nice old lady at the switchboard yesterday.)
e-mail: comments@whitehouse.gov

State Department:
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Main Switchboard:
202-647-4000 (I was only able to leave a recorded message yesterday)

Contacting your own congressional representative and/or senators is also probably a very helpful thing to do.

And there is also the Afghan Embassy:

Ambassador Said T. Jawad
Embassy of Afghanistan
2341 Wyoming Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20008
info@embassyofafghanistan.org
Telephone: (202)483-6410.

Personally I think it’s best to be polite, but concise and firm about the crucial importance of freedom of religion being respected by a democratic state that American soldiers have given their lives to help establish.

Michelle Malkin continues to fault the administration for not demanding that Rahman be set free. I agree that the first priority must be to prevent his execution, but I also tend to think that the administration is holding out hope for the best case scenario: that Rahman be vindicated by the Afghan legal system, based on a precedent-setting interpretation of the Afghan constitution. If he is set free in a way that is essentially extra-judicial, based on demands and threats from the international community, then no progress at all has been made, and we simply sit back and wait for another such case. As the state department said correctly yesterday, this is a test of Afghan democracy and the Afghan constitution. It is much to be preferred that they should pass the test.

Nevertheless, if that fails, Rahman must be saved, and we can only hope that the Afghans will be better able to rise to the occasion next time.

As of today the prosecutor in the case is raising questions about Rahman mental fitness to stand trial.

“We think he could be mad. He is not a normal person. He doesn’t talk like a normal person,” he told The Associated Press.

Moayuddin Baluch, a religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, said Rahman would undergo a psychological examination.

“Doctors must examine him,” he said. “If he is mentally unfit, definitely Islam has no claim to punish him. He must be forgiven. The case must be dropped.”

It was not immediately clear when he would be examined or when the trial would resume. Authorities have barred attempts by the AP to see Rahman and he is not believed to have a lawyer.

A Western diplomat in Kabul and a human rights advocate — both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter — said the government was desperately searching for a way to drop the case because of the reaction it has caused.

Well, if this is how it plays out, it amounts to merely punting the issue down the road. That might be the best possible result at this juncture. Nevertheless, anyone who has read any of his remarks that have been published so far (and via Malkin here also is a link to videotape of him speaking) cannot have detected anything indicating insanity — unless belief in Jesus Christ itself is to be considered innately insane (and that might be an easy case to make to many Afghans, admittedly).

It then becomes crucial, if such a finding-of-convenience is made, that Rahman not be held against his will in any mental institution, since this would amount to a de facto punishment for his religious beliefs.

Even set free, a finding of insanity will inevitably hurt Rahman, not least because he had been involved in a custody dispute with relatives, when they apparently took the iniative to turn him in for his Christianity. His situation will be complicated to say the least, and he will probably be facing serious danger to his life from “unofficial” sources.

The most fundamentally crucial thing remains, however, that the new democratic and constitutional institutions of Afghanistan, which the United States and its allies have given blood and treasure to establish and nurture, must not carry out an execution (or indeed any legal punishment) of a man simply for saying, “I believe in Jesus Christ.”

For too many people, this would simply be a deal-breaker.

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