Bush and Karzai at a religious showdown

An Afghan citizen threatened with execution for rejecting Islam has been released amid intense international outcry.

Italy granted asylum to Abdul Rahman, 41, who was charged with converting to Christianity, as his life would be at risk in Afghanistan. Apostasy is punishable by death under the interpretation of Islamic Sharia law.

The sensitive case had placed Afghan President Hamid Karzai at a political dilemma, as he was under extreme pressure of both his western allies calling for the man’s release and religious conservatives at home demanding his execution.

President Bush last week said that he was “deeply troubled” over the Christian Afghan’s fate, while US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned Karzai to seek a “favourable solution at the earliest possible moment”.

“US forces did not help liberate Afghanistan from the Taleban rule so that conservative Islamic judges could issue death sentences against people because of their religious beliefs,” Bush pointed out.

Australian Prime Minster John Howard warned that he could not be friend of any nation that could “advocate killing someone for changing his faith”.

Although Karzai stressed the case was to the judiciary to decide, many believe he personally intervened to dismiss the case.

Abdul Rahman’s case was a blow to the Afghan government’s effort to balance international laws with Islamic religious codes – which are both enshrined in the new Afghan constitution.

Although the Afghan Supreme Court said the accused was released on technical and health grounds, the decision unleashed a storm of protests across the country condemning the “western interference” into the matter.

"Western countries have occupied nations, destroyed their political and social systems and killed thousands of people so that people would conform to their civilisation or their pattern of thinking ... While doing so, why did they not bother about honouring the universal principle of freedom," asked an influential cleric Shahnewaz.

Abdul Rahman converted to Christianity when he worked with a Christian aid organisation in Pakistan 16 years ago. He then moved to Germany.

He was arrested last week in Kabul after he returned to take the custody of his two daughters living with his family.

His family refused to let him take his children because he reportedly forced his children to convert to Christianity.

Afghan convert to be ‘released’

An Afghan Christian facing possible death penalty will be released, Afghan officials say.

Abdul Rahman is charged with conversion from Islam to Christianity. Apostasy is subject to capital punishment under the Islamic sharia law. Many Afghan judiciary officials and clerics have demanded Abdul Rahman be sentenced to death.

Since the beginning of the trial, the Afghan government has been under serious international pressure.

Pope Benedict XVI has called on the Afghan president to “show clemency” towards Abdul Rahman.

Last week President Bush urged President Karzai to find a “favourable resolution” to the issue.

The decision is however quite tough for Karzai, as he needs to keep happy both his international allies and Afghan religious conservatives.

Abdul Rahman converted to Christianity almost 12 years ago when working with a foreign organisation in Pakistan.

He was arrested in Kabul last month after a family row over who to take care of his children. His family are reported to have refused to submit the children to him.

Some Supreme Court officials have said the suspect will be released on health grounds. They say he is not psychologically fit.

Foreign Minister Abdollah says he's "happy with Karzai's decision"

Former Afghan Foreign Minister Abdollah Abdollah has said President Karzai's decision to remove him from the cabinet is "understandable".

Dr Abdollah was replaced by Dr Dadfar Spanta in the recent cabinet reshuffle. He told the BBC that he welcomed Karzai's changes to the cabinet.

He added that he would back the current development and security process despite his absenece in the government.

Dr Abdollah's positive reaction is very encouraging as it shows that the culture of war and hostility is being replaced by the culture of diplomacy and tolerance.

Previously, when officials were removed or demoted, they would certainly take an offensive stance.

But now they try to achieve their political ends through legitimate and peaceful means rather than to take the path of confrontation.

Afghan foreign minister has been dropped off in the recent cabinet reshuffle. Dr Abdollah has been replaced by Dr Dadfar Spanta, Karzai's adviser on foreign affairs.

Many observers see the exclusion of Dr Abdollah with both surprise and scepticism, as he was one of the ministers that has scored notable achievements over the past four years.

Dr Masuda Jalal, former minster of women's affairs, and two other female minsters have also been excluded. The new cabinet only has one new female member, Dr Suraya Sohrang.

Karzai has time and again been censured by opponents for appointing senior officials on the basis of ethnic and tribal relations. It is therefore feared that the removal of Dr Abdollah, an ethnic Tajik, could unleash a wave of criticism.

Bird flu reaches Afghanistan

The lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu has been confirmed in Afghanistan, recent reports reveal.

A test on bird flu samples confirmed at least six cases of the virus in eastern Jalalabad city early this week.

Although no human cases have so far been detected throughout the country, it is feared that hundreds of thousands of people will perish once the virus is transmitted to humans.

Cases of bird flu have already been found in neighbouring Pakistan and India. India last week closed down hundreds of thousands of poultry farms after the virus was tested positive in many chickens.

The Afghan government has imposed a ban on the import of chickens from Pakistan.


The Afghan Ministry of Health lacks resources and facilities to prevent the pandemic.

Further, most of the Afghan population do not have any knowledge of the disease. There is therefore a dire need for launching public awareness campaigns on the virus.

Bearing in mind the government's inability to cope with the lethal disease, the UN and the international community should take urgent, precautionary measures before it is too late.

Osama movie review

Have you seen Osama? Don't get astonished. I'm talking about the movie, not Bin Laden. Don't miss it. It's really worth watching.

Osama is a fairly grim portryal of life under the Taliban. Like The Pianist, Osama shows how religious fundamentalism ruins the entire aspects of life and how it deprives citizens of their basic rights and daily life pleasures.

The The film tells the tragic tale of a destitute widow tempting fate by sending her 12-year-old daughter to make a living, ignoring the terrible consequences.

The little girl, now called Osama, undergoes a horrible time as she struggles to hide her female identity from the Taliban to avoid severe punishment.

Zobaida, 38, has lost all her male family memebers over the long years of war, including her husband. She worked as a nurse at a local hospital, but she can not work now as the Taliban totally banned women from working outside home. Life becomes appallingly difficult for Zobaida, as she has no income source to feed her two young children and widowed grandmother.

So finally the grandmother comes up with an idea for survival. She asks Golbahari to cut her hair short and dress up like boys and find a job to earn a living for the family.

“If the Taliban realise I am a girl, they will defintely kill me,” says the little girl filled with fear and hesitation. “If you do not work, we all will die,” says the grandmother in an attempt to encourage the girl.

Golbahari, now named Osama, finds a job at a local shop quite soon. The idea helps the poor family to scrap a living for a while, but they can not fight the destiny.

Everything turns into a nightmare when the Taliban begin rounding up young people from streets for military training and religious indoctrination. Osama is also drafted into an army training school.

Here begins the most tragic scenes of the film. Osama faces a hard time in the training camp and offen harrased and bullied by other school boys, because of her feministic characteristics.

Despite all intolerable harassment and hardship, she has to conceal her female identity to avoid terrible punishment, perhaps a death penalty.

The film is directed by Seddiq Barmak, a professional Afghan filmmaker with a degree in Arts from Russia in 1980s. Most of the key characters of the film are non-professional Afghans.
Even the protagonist, Marina Gulbahari, was hired from an orphanage. Marina’s natural performance with a face full of gloomy emotion and sad feeling adds make the film resemble a documentary.

What makes the film a masterpiece is its simple but truthfully tragic story. Although the story of the film is confined to story of a single family suffering under the Taleban - just a tip of the iceberg - it depicts the real image of life under the oppressive Taliban regime.

It demonstrates that the women were denied of all basic rights under the Taliban, and that they preferred to die rather than to live such a horrible life. “Wish God had never created women,” says the desperate mother with extreme grief and pessimism.

In many cases, the natural scenes of the film make it resemble a documentary. No brave heart can stand not shedding tears seeing a little girl fighting for her life and being mercilessly brutalized by savage extremists.

Osama is an unbearably sad story, beautifully turned into a documentary-like film. Although some critics have underscored several imperfections of the film, the award-winning movie is doubtlessly a brilliant start to rebuild the shattered Afghan film industry and cultural heritage.