Doran blog

KABUL (AFP) – Fearing his Christian faith could land him in prison, or worse, 22-year-old Afghan Enayat is one of thousands in the Islamic nation still hoping for religious freedom, ten years after the Taliban's fall.

"I used to carry my bible everywhere -- I don't any more," says the baby-faced convert, using a pseudonym for fear of being identified and speaking to AFP at the home of a trusted friend, west of Kabul.

"I don't want to call myself a Christian, people would think I'm immoral."

In Afghanistan, where insurgents continue to fight their "holy war" against foreign forces, there are no churches, evangelising is illegal and the country's constitution forbids conversion from Islam to another religion.

The crime carries the death penalty, although it has not been enforced in recent history.

"If I'm arrested, I would never say I'm a Christian. If you admit it, you (cannot stay in) the country," he says.

Missionaries and other foreigners suspected of being in Afghanistan to convert others to Christianity have been killed in recent years.

Eight foreign medics, accused by the Taliban of being missionaries, were shot dead in north Afghanistan in August. Their organisation, a Christian aid group which had worked in the country for 45 years, said it never proselytised.

A huge sense of fear pervades Afghanistan's Christian community -- estimated by Western faith groups to number several thousand.

In May pressures rose for the minority group when Afghan local television broadcast footage of men being baptised and reciting Christian prayers in Farsi, apparently in a Kabul house, triggering angry protests.

Two Afghans were arrested on suspicion of converting to Christianity after that incident and are being held in Kabul as their court case drags on.

One of the men, Musa Sayed, who works for the International Committee of the Red Cross and is a friend of Enayat, says in a letter detailing his experience he has been beaten, raped and humiliated "day and night".

Sayed, who converted to Christianity six years ago and refuses to return to Islam, does not know if he will be executed or face life imprisonment or exile.

The cases have prompted protests from Christian groups worldwide who have helped raise the profile of Afghanistan's beleaguered Christians.

One, British-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), met with the Foreign Office in London last year to raise its concerns.

"In a country where religious and national identity are closely intertwined and Christianity is viewed as a Western religion, being a Christian and an Afghan can mean being associated with foreign powers and so betraying both Islam and Afghanistan," the group says.

The last person thought to have been tried in Afghanistan for converting, Abdul Rahman, who was arrested in 2006, was eventually released and granted refugee status in Italy after worldwide protests.

Such cases hang heavy in Enayat's thoughts.

He says he discovered Christianity through "American friends" in the early 2000s and converted during a trip to India in 2006.

"One night, I couldn't sleep. I felt the spirit of God hugging me and I heard his voice, it was strong and hot," he recalls. "Then I just felt like (I was) born again."

Enayat returned to Afghanistan from India in 2009, intending to speak about how his experiences "made me a better man."

But he hit a wall of incomprehension -- his mother broke down in tears when he told her, terrified of the shame her son's conversion would bring on the family.

Following last May's arrests, Enayat says he has stopped speaking about his religion, although he is determined the situation will not drive him out of his country.

"I cried about Afghanistan a lot when I was abroad," he says. "Afghans need people like me, I want to develop this country. If I wanted to go to the UK or United States, I would be thinking only of myself."