Advertisement

Christian Convert Gets Asylum

Share
From the Associated Press

An Afghan man who had faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity received asylum in Italy on Wednesday.

Abdur Rahman, 41, arrived in Rome days after he was freed from a prison on the outskirts of Kabul after a court dropped charges of apostasy against him for lack of evidence and suspected mental illness.

Afghanistan’s new parliament had debated Rahman’s case Wednesday and demanded he be barred from leaving the country. But no formal vote was taken.

Advertisement

About 500 Afghans gathered at a mosque in the southern town of Qalat, in Zabol province, to demand that he be forced to return to Islam or be killed.

Rahman’s case attracted wide attention in the West and led to calls by the U.S. and other nations for the Afghan government to protect him.

It also inspired an appeal by Pope Benedict XVI to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and efforts by the United Nations to find a country to take Rahman in after Muslim clerics in Afghanistan threatened his life.

Advertisement