The
New York Times yesterday reported at length on the plight in Afghanistan of a Muslim convert to Christianity (identified only as "Josef") who is in hiding as his brother-in-law and uncles are seeking to find him and kill him for apostasy. More generally, according to the report:
In official eyes here, there are no Afghan Christians. The few Afghans who practice the faith do so in private for fear of persecution, attending one of a handful of underground churches that are believed to be operating in the country. Expatriates use chapels on embassy grounds, but those are effectively inaccessible to Afghans.
Only a few Afghan converts have surfaced in the past decade, and the government has typically dealt with them swiftly and silently: They are asked to recant, and if they refuse, they are expelled, usually to India, where an Afghan church flourishes in New Delhi....
That leaves Josef almost nowhere to turn for protection. The police would be no help. Converts report being beaten and sexually abused while in custody.
