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Western Countries Concerned As Missionaries Face Sharia in Kabul
KABUL, Aug 6 (News Agencies) - The United Nations expressed concern on Monday at Taliban militia reports that said eight foreigners, arrested on suspicions of preaching Christianity, would be punished according to Sharia law.
The conservative regime's deputy religious police minister, Mohammad Salim Haqani, told the French news agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP), that the foreigners had confessed to their crimes but the extent of their proselytizing, which would determine the punishment, was still unclear.
The foreigners - two men and six women - were among 24 people arrested Sunday, and are understood to include two Americans, two Australians and four Germans.
Missionary work in Muslim countries has thrived in areas with humanitarian crises like Northern Iraq, Southern Sudan and areas of Afghanistan - despite protests from Muslim governments.
Only last year, the Taliban militia decreed that anyone found to have successfully encouraged an Afghan to convert to another religion, or any Afghan who renounced Islam, would be executed.
"In line with the decrees of (Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar) and Islamic Sharia law we will declare the penalties against these people," Haqani said, adding that the detainees were still being interrogated.
He said the foreigners, staff of the U.S.-based relief agency Shelter Now International (SNI), were found with Christian literature including a Bible and a Christian film, which had been played on a computer to an Afghan family.
"We have been following this group for a long time and finally on Friday afternoon we were able to capture the two women red-handed as they showed the film to an Afghan family," Haqani said, referring to the American women, whom he did not identify.
A U.S. embassy spokesman in neighboring Pakistan said diplomats had been in touch with Taliban officials there and in Kabul, but had received no confirmation that Americans were being held.
"Up to this point we have not had any word back from the Taliban and they have not confirmed to us that they are holding these two Americans," the spokesman told AFP.
"We are seeking a swift resolution to this issue."
Haqani said the detainees had been forbidden any contact with the outside world as the militia investigated SNI's activities here in the capital and in the provinces.
The two men were being held at a religious police detention center while the women were detained at a home for juveniles, officials said.
SNI's offices, as well as a school where the group was teaching some 65 children, have been closed. Children were undergoing Islamic education at the juvenile center where the female detainees were being held.
"Obviously this is a major concern for us that humanitarian workers are being arrested," U.N. country coordinator's office spokeswoman Letizia Rossano said.
"There is a pattern that has clearly been coming out in the past few months of increasing difficulties for foreign aid workers."
The U.N. has complained at the highest levels about increasing incidents of harassment, intimidation and the arrests of aid workers at a time when the international community is struggling to avert a humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan, resulting from the ongoing civil war and the worst drought in reminiscence.
The Taliban professes to respect religious freedom, but earlier this year caused an international outcry by blowing up two ancient and colossal statues of Buddha in line with a local decree against "idolatry".
It was also condemned for proposing that members of the Afghan Hindu minority wear yellow badges to distinguish them from Muslims, drawing comparisons with the Nazis' yellow star requirement for Jews.
The German foreign ministry confirmed that four Germans, including SNI's director for Afghanistan, were being held, while an embassy spokesman in Pakistan said the matter would be raised with the Taliban.
"There is a new trend (by the Taliban) to take a tougher stance against foreigners," the spokesman said.
SNI's operations in Afghanistan, including soup kitchens, bakeries and the manufacturing of roofing beams and mud houses, receive support from Germany, Britain, Holland and the U.N.
Staff and donor representatives said it was not an evangelical organization, but its web page talks of being "instruments of God's love for all people and especially the poor."
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