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In "Abdul Rahman's Family Values," Time Magazine (thanks to all who sent this in) reveals "an official police report on the Christian convert in Afghanistan" which "alleges a tawdry domestic life."
It never seems to occur to Time that anyone in Afghanistan might have any interest in blackening Abdul Rahman's name, and they retail these stories from supposedly disinterested officials and family members (that's right, the family that turned him in for apostasy) without critical comment.
Most importantly, these stories are a gigantic red herring, of interest only to the most befogged dhimmis. It doesn't matter if Abdul Rahman is a deadbeat dad, a father stabber, a mother raper, or the second coming of Adolf Hitler. If he is any of those things, of course he should be prosecuted in a sane society by a sane court system. But ultimately whether he is or is not those things is irrelevant to the question of whether or not he is free, or should be free, to leave the Islamic religion in Afghanistan.
He said he was a Christian, you see, so Time Magazine has to portray him in a negative light. Time's enemy, after all, is Christianity, not the global Islamic jihad.
By attempting to divert attention away from that central question, Time Magazine deserves the opprobrium of all free people everywhere.
Western leaders breathed a sigh of relief yesterday at the release of Abdul Rahman, a Christian convert who had faced the death penalty under Afghanistan's Islamic law for renouncing his Muslim faith. Rahman, 40, has become the poster boy for the Christian right and for religious freedom. Closer up, however, the picture painted by the local police who arrested him shows a candidate not quite ready for family values. Rather, a portrait emerges of a deadbeat dad with psychological problems who couldn't hold down a job, abused his daughters and parents and didn't pay child support.Colonel Mohammed Saber Monseffi, the chief crime officer at the 15th district police station in Kabul, brought Abdul Rahman in for questioning after a domestic dispute turned violent late last month. Says Monseffi, "He told me, 'I'm a Christian,' and I said that is not of any interest to me. I asked him why did you beat your father, why did you beat your daughters?" The fact that Rahman was Christian was secondary to his family's desire to get him out of the house, said Monseffi, who adds that his own wife is a Russian Christian.
Witness statements by his teenage daughters Mariam and Maria, aged 13 and 14, on the night of his arrest appear to detail his failures as a parent. "He behaves badly with us and we were threatened and disgraced by him. He has no job and has never given me a stitch of clothing or a crust of bread. Just his name as a father," said his 13-year-old daughter Mariam in a statement signed with her inky fingerprint.
Both his daughters mentioned that he had converted to Christianity and abandoned the religion of Islam but also described him as "jobless, lazy and cruel." His 14-year-old daughter Maria said that when her father returned to Afghanistan three years ago after spending many years in Germany and Pakistan he was a stranger to her. "He said he was my father but he hasn't behaved like a father since he came back to Afghanistan. He threatens us and we are all afraid of him and he doesn't believe in the religion of Islam," her statement said.
Abdul Rahman's parents did not appear to help his cause. A statement by his mother Ghul Begum reads: "We brought up his children and for eight years he didn't come home. Because he has converted from Islam to another religion we don't want him in our house." His father Abdul Manan's statement says, "(Abdul Rahman) wanted to change the ethics of my children and family. He is not going in the right direction. I have thrown him out of my house." Abdul Rahman's own statement does not dispute his financial straits. "Since I am jobless my family is with my children. I had economic problems with my familiy and my father has many complaints about me. He has warned me if I don't become a Muslim, I will be driven away from the house."
Now, both his daughters and the rest of his family are in hiding in Kabul, fearful that they could be targeted by a now liberated Rahman or by Islamic extremists. On Monday several hundred clerics, students and other protestors gathered on the streets of Mazar-i-Sharif calling for his execution and shouting "death to Christians." Afghanistan's deputy attorney general Mohammed Eshaq Aloko said Rahman would be allowed overseas for medical treatment but that the case could be reopened "when he is healthy."
Posted by Robert at March 29, 2006 5:13 PM
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Before I saw this thread, I Ahref="http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/010791.php#c196427">posted this Time Magazine article by Rachel Morarjee in the JW thread on Mr. Rahman being given asylum. As I said there:
So we are now to believe that Mr. Rahman is cruel to his famiily and doesn't support them. What is the act most cruel that makes his daughters fear him? Because he has brought, horror of horrors, Christianity into their home. How can he support his family when his own parents kicked him out, took his children and said he was no longer welcome around them all because he embraced Christianity?
Islam is thicker than blood, I will not bother to quote the koran passage that says to shun even your closest family if they choose a path other than islam.
Ms. Morarjee, who is being cruel to whom?
Posted by: Lisa![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 29, 2006 5:30 PM
I read this and wondered why would someone write such a biased, almost like a 'hit piece.' Is. Ms. Morarjee a Muslim? Newsweek is just as bad. Dhimmis in control.
Posted by: John Sobieski at March 29, 2006 6:00 PM
Enough to make you spew. Just like the old Stalin days. Anyone who does not toe the party line is insane, or sociopathic. If "Time" reports that the Pope is indeed Catholic, I'd seek a second source to confirm it.
Posted by: MP at March 29, 2006 6:07 PM
Hmm, his case could be reopened when he is healthy.
This cult is pathetic. It's the one unhealthy.
Posted by: freewoman at March 29, 2006 6:10 PM
I have just thought of an experiment which involves Time Magazine (or Newsweek). I have not tried it, but nonetheless, the results might prove interesting. When shopping in any store which may have a magazine section, one usually has a cart or basket in which a stack of Time or Newsweek Magazines would fit in along with your other items for purchase. Grab one or two copies; or more if you need them. Before you get to the checkout line, you might change your mind about the magazine purchase. Instead of placing the magazines among the dairy products, frozen foods or produce where they do not belong- look for a trash can. These are always located outside restrooms in most grocery and drug stores. This sort of thing can always be included in your shopping list (25 Time Magazines), lest you forget.
Posted by: PMN at March 29, 2006 6:46 PM
I am absolutely tired of the treasonous media like time. What a bunch of bastards. Sometimes I wish the wacko christians that the media claims to exist in the US actually did. Where are these lunatic Christians that are as bad as muslims to target Time magazine for its hateful and insulting slurs against christianity. Just like where were these wacko Christian fundamentalists while Terry Schiavo was being murdered by here husband. Nowhere because they dont exist. Sometimes i want to convert to Islam because lets face it guys benefit from Islam. Most of us on this site hate Islam because it is evil plain and simple. But all these leftist freaks that write for the media or these gay groups that hate Christianity more would be anihilated if we all became muslims.
Sometimes I just say let them have what they want, convert and go on a rampage.
at March 29, 2006 6:46 PM
I read this and wondered why would someone write such a biased, almost like a 'hit piece.' Is. Ms. Morarjee a Muslim? Newsweek is just as bad. Dhimmis in control.
Morarjee sounds like a Hindu name to me, while Newsweeks editor is Fareed Zakaria a Muslim.
Posted by: Vikrant_Camberleykar at March 29, 2006 6:57 PM
Totally irrelvant! Everyone has the right to change their faith, whether they are a good parent or not.
Posted by: Lili at March 29, 2006 7:45 PM
You're a journalist. You work for a magazine.
You have two potential stories:
A) Islam threatens to kill you if you leave their inhuman cult.
No comment from Time.
Or:
B) The guy who is threatened with death by Islam turns out to be merely human.
Time's answer: B!
Attack!
Like criticizing the paint color of an incoming V-2 rocket instead of its effect.
Their editorial blindspot is in the shape of a subconscious crescent.
Posted by: profitsbeard at March 29, 2006 7:56 PM
From the article: "Rahman, 40, has become the poster boy for the Christian right and for religious freedom. Closer up, however, the picture painted by the local police who arrested him shows a candidate not quite ready for family values."
Good Lord! So is Time magazine now insinuating that non-Muslims who are not "poster boy's" for Christian "family values" deserve to be executed?!
But where would that leave atheists and agnostics such as themselves, and all others in the west who are not exactly 'poster boys for Christian family values' either?
Why do I feel a bizarre twist on Reverend Martin Niemoeller's famous satement coming on?:
"In Germany, the Nazis first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew..."
...Then they came for those who weren't poster boys for Christian family values and I wasn't.... Wait a second! That's me! Slow the hell down there! I think I might need to rethink this thing...
Posted by: Caroline at March 29, 2006 8:15 PM
And then there is that reputable new York times which will not out of sensitivity for the Muslims print the cartoons,but but get this will accept almost a million dollars to do an 8 page spread on the virtues of Sudan. A country which even UN has condemed as engaging in warfare to it"s peoples.
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4618 So again the promotion of murder is okay if a buck can be made.
at March 29, 2006 8:43 PM
vikrant said
"Morarjee sounds like a Hindu name to me, while Newsweeks editor is Fareed Zakaria a Muslim"
surprising how some hindu people turn into cowering dhimmis when faced with muslims. you can see this all the time in India.
Posted by: desidude at March 29, 2006 9:42 PM
TIME...the same mag that considered OBL for man of the year...how credible they are since showing their true colors.
Posted by: Bayoucoyote at March 29, 2006 11:57 PM
He may well be mentally unstable. And if he is, I suspect it's an organic condition.
And those learned Muslim clerics, scholars and politicians who've called for his death are mentally unstable, too.
By choice.
Posted by: PRCS at March 30, 2006 12:05 AM
Islam is thicker than blood, but generally thinner than money.
Posted by: bobalharb at March 30, 2006 1:16 AM
So he was in Germany for some years. Presumably sending money home to support all the family, including his paretns and numerous siblings who would take their cut before his wife and children got anything. Work abroad and send money home is so common.
He may have had shortcomings as a parent. Then he becomes a Christian and discovers a different perspective. Maybe he really was a bad father and now wants to be a good father. Maybe he always was a good father and thought working abroad was the best way to fulfil his responsibilities.
His daughters are probably right that he is a stranger, by the very nature of the migrant breadwinner system. But I bet they have cousins, who are marked out to be their husbands (if they aren't already), who scare them more than their Dad.
at March 30, 2006 3:16 AM
Maybe Mr Rahman also was just suffering from this Islamophobia that there seems so much of these days. Their allways seems to be many muslims sat in the surgery and collecting sickness benefits. Its a really bad condition.
Posted by: dizzyfatplonka at March 30, 2006 8:32 AM
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