Last May 31 in Afghanistan, a world away from American backyard
barbeques and military parades, Sayeed Mussa vanished into thin
air. Mr. Mussa was spirited away to an unknown location to be
executed for his faith in Jesus Christ. No, his captors were not
the Taliban insurgents but Afghanistan government officials,
bankrolled by U.S. taxpayers and defended by American troops.
As President Obama proclaimed January 16th to be
“Religious Freedom Day,” he declared that “the United States stands
with those who advocate for free religious expression and works to
protect the rights of all people to follow their conscience, free
from persecution and discrimination.” If the Obama Administration
is working to promote religious freedom across the globe at all,
it’s not working very hard.
Mr. Mussa’s plight is a case in point. The United States
has spent billions of dollars and thousands of lives to liberate
the Afghan people from the Taliban’s theocratic tyranny yet
Christians and other religious minorities are frequently harassed
and jailed for exercising a core right in any free and democratic
state.
Mr. Mussa, who lost his own leg to a landmine, was
arrested on his way home from his work at the International
Committee of the Red Cross/Red Crescent where he helped fit fellow
Afghan amputees with prosthetics. The father-of-six was inspired by
the selflessness of Christian aid workers and converted to
Christianity. When Afghani TV profiled Mr. Mussa in a story on
Christians in Kabul, he was imprisoned in a secret facility where
he was raped and beaten by his jailers and fellow
inmates.
After Mussa disappeared, his wife reached out for help to
find her husband. When word reached the halls of Congress in early
June, Congressman Frank Wolf and the International Religious
Freedom Caucus contacted the State Department immediately. The
silence from State was deafening. After much prodding from Caucus
coordinator Tina Ramirez, Foggy Bottom finally responded to Wolf’s
initial letter three months later by advising “extreme
caution in raising alarm; [religious minorities] are best protected
by as little public attention as possible.” The Red Cross, Mussa’s
former employer, washed their hands of Mussa and blamed the Afghan
Christian for his fate.
Mr. Mussa’s location and his appalling conditions were
serendipitously discovered at the end of July, without the help of
the State Department, Red Cross, or Afghan government. Afghan
authorities refused to inform Mussa of his crime and denied him
visits with his foreign lawyer. His jailers repeatedly
pressured him to recant his faith. An Afghan lawyer refused to take
the case until Mussa recanted. He refused.
The Congressional International Religious Freedom Caucus
and Ms. Ramirez, now at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, kept
the pressure up on the State Department. A flurry of letters and
calls from Caucus leader Rep. Trent Franks pushed reluctant U.S.
officials to act. Once they did, the Afghan government moved Mussa
to a safer and more humane facility in October. Mussa’s trial was
delayed and he was finally released in late February, nine months
after he was first jailed.
Although Mr. Mussa’s story has a relatively happy ending,
it points to a more pernicious reality — that the State Department
is abandoning its commitment to a core right in any free society —
the freedom of faith and conscience. Under the 1998 International
Religious Freedom Act, the U.S. government must engage foreign
governments to promote religious liberty and take punitive action
where appropriate.
The Obama Administration and State Department in
particular pay lip service to this policy but through inaction aid
and abet the persecution of religious minorities the world over.
The State Department reported that religious liberties had
“deteriorated” in 2010 but declined to list Afghanistan as a
Country of Particular Concern. For another Afghan Christian Shoaib
Said Assadullah who still faces a death sentence for apostasy, the
State Department’s ineffectual hand-wringing is cold comfort.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that religious liberty
is “a cornerstone of a healthy society,” but it is appallingly
clear that the Administration does not consider religious liberty
to be worth its time or efforts. If Afghanistan routinely undercuts
religious liberty, what kind of society are we helping to build
there?
As Americans, we expect our foreign policy to be in line
with our values. American allies and partners like Afghanistan
should be expected to respect core freedoms like religious liberty.
As a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
Afghanistan already has an obligation to protect religious liberty.
The United States must insist that the Karzai government uphold its
international commitments and adhere to the core values of a free
society by codifying protections for religious liberty into Afghan
law.
American soldiers and Marines, many of them devout
Christians, are dying to protect Afghans from theocratic tyranny.
The State Department must do its duty and see to it that Kabul
honors those hard-fought freedoms.
