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Taliban arrests
expose Christian missionary activities in Muslim countries
From: sautterd Sent:
Freitag, 17.
August 2001
The Taliban authorities
in Afghanistan arrested 24 staff members of a German charity working in Kabul on
August 5, setting off yet another international outcry about their alleged
inhumanity. The outcry was quickly muted, however, when, three days later, the
Taliban displayed clear evidence that the charity had in fact been involved in
covert Christian missionary work under cover of its charitable activities.
Shortly after the
arrests, the Taliban authorities also published new laws governing foreigners
working in Afghanistan, clarifying the confusion surrounding edicts leaked to
the press in June, which had appeared harsh. Under the new laws, foreigners
propogating other religions will be subjected only to a month’s
imprisonment and expulsion from the country. Other regulations govern the
playing of music and the drinking of alcohol, saying that these are banned only
in public, not totally.
Eight of the 24 arrested
were foreigners, two of them American, two Australian and four German. They were
initially reported to be employees of Shelter Now International (SNI), an
US-based Christian relief organization committed to providing housing for
refugees in Africa, Asia and eastern Europe. The evidence discovered by the
Taliban authorities clearly indicated, however, that they were involved in
evangelical work. It included thousands of Bibles translated into local
languages, as well as large numbers of audio- and video-tapes of Christian
teachings.
Moreover, it soon also
became clear from other evidence developments that there was substance to the
Taliban’s claims. The day after the arrests, the SNI’s base
office in Wisconsin, USA, issued a statement denying that those arrested had any
connection with them. The statement said that they were employed by a
German-based agency that has "sometimes used the name Shelter Now without
SNI’s permission, thus creating the confusion surrounding this
incident."
The German agency
referred to by SNI was subsequently identified as Vision for Asia, a US-German
evangelical group specifically committed to spreading Christianity among
"the unreached non-Christians of the World". However, Mike Heil,
Vision for Asia’s spokesman in the US, denied that the eight arrested
in Kabul had any connection with the organization, although he admitted knowing
them. Instead, he insisted that they were working for a SNI affiliate based in
Germany. He also pointed out the danger to the eight prisoners of identifying
them with Vision for Asia. "It’s a potentially dangerous
problem," he said, "because Vision for Asia is an evangelical
organization and Shelter Now is a humanitarian one. Although we work together
our mandates are different and distinct. Because we have been linked so closely
in the press, in my mind it’s putting the workers from Shelter Now
that are being detained in more jeopardy."
Heil’s
position, however, is made untenable by SNI’s prior denial that those
arrested have any connection with it; instead it seems in line with SNI’s
claim that they are connected with a group that "sometimes use[s] the name
Shelter Now without permission." In fact, SNI’s hands are hardly
clean either. In the early 1990s, SNI were expelled from Pakistan, where they
had been working among Afghan refugees, precisely because their workers were
trying to Christianize Afghan refugees.
The Ottawa Citizen
newspaper pointed out on August 8 that SNI’s own website also promotes
missionary work under cover of charitable activities. Commenting on the
expulsion of some workers from Afghanistan in 1998, the site reads in part:
"Obviously being a strict Muslim country, foreign missionaries are not
allowed to come there and evangelize, but there are many Christians who have
come as aid workers... People in Afghanistan have never heard the name of Jesus
Christ, so it is a place of tremendous need. It’s one of the final
frontiers for the Gospel to penetrate. Pray for those who have been forced to
leave the country and just pray that they’d be able to return."
In another clear
indication of the guilt of those arrested, Australian diplomats in Pakistan said
that they would be travelling to Kabul when permission was granted, not to
protest against the missionaries’ arrests or demand that they be
released, but simply to ensure their safety and offer them legal representation.
If the two Australians arrested had done anything wrong, he said, they would
have to answer to the law of the land.
As a result of the new
laws for foreigners, announced after the arrests, their punishment may not be as
severe as had initially been expected, when some reports suggested that they
could be executed. The Risk of a month’s imprisonment and expulsion
is, unfortunately, unlikely to deter other missionaries from trying to exploit
the plight of Afghanistan suffering people.
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