Is the AP out of control?

[Agamemnus]

I was going to check my email on comcast.net and saw a "news" story about a man who could be in trouble for being a Christian in Afghanistan.. so I thought "what the hell?", and did some 5 MINUTE searching of my own. I found out that the article is complete bull.

Afghan Man Prosecuted for Converting

KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan man who allegedly converted from Islam to Christianity is being prosecuted in a Kabul court and could be sentenced to death, a judge said Sunday.

The defendant, Abdul Rahman, was arrested last month after his family went to the police and accused him of becoming a Christian, Judge Ansarullah Mawlavezada told Associated Press in an interview. Such a conversion would violate the country's Islamic laws.

Rahman, who is believed to be 41, was charged with rejecting Islam when his trial started last week, the judge said.

During the hearing, the defendant allegedly confessed that he converted from Islam to Christianity 16 years ago when he was 25 and working as a medical aid worker for Afghan refugees in neighboring Pakistan, Mawlavezada said.

Afghanistan's constitution is based on Shariah law, which states that any Muslim who rejects their religion should be sentenced to death.

"We are not against any particular religion in the world. But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law," the judge said. "It is an attack on Islam. ... The prosecutor is asking for the death penalty."

The prosecutor, Abdul Wasi, said the case was the first of its kind in Afghanistan.

He said that he had offered to drop the charges if Rahman changed his religion back to Islam, but the defendant refused.

Mawlavezada said he would rule on the case within two months.

Afghanistan is a deeply conservative society and 99 percent of its 28 million people are Muslim. The rest are mainly Hindus.

Afghanistan's constitution is NOT based on Sharia law.

http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/af00000_.html

Article 2 [Religions]
(1) The religion of the state of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is the sacred religion of Islam.
(2) Followers of other religions are free to exercise their faith and perform their religious rites within the limits of the provisions of law.

Article 7 [International Law]
(1) The state shall abide by the UN charter, international treaties, international conventions that Afghanistan has signed, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
(2) The state prevents all types of terrorist activities, production and consumption of intoxicants (muskirat), production and smuggling of narcotics.

[Anonymous]

maybe the propoganda really IS that bad... good thing i don't pay much attention to it...

edit: could there possibly be a better way to get a bunch of christian rednecks mad at them??

[Z!re]

(2) The state prevents all types of terrorist activities, production and consumption of intoxicants (muskirat), production and smuggling of narcotics.

I find that amusing, since Afghanistan is once again (After the american lead government took over) the worlds largest producer of "poppy" (opiate if i recall)


Anyways, news item seems to be bull.. but could be true and warped..

It's not like laws are followed too hard in nations run by drug barons and warlords..