ICC Note:
This is really encouraging. Usually you won’t see this kind of straightforward story in the mainstream press re. Islam
In many Muslim countries, religious conversion is taboo

Sharia calls any change apostasy, Family influence also discourages it

JASPER MORTIMER
For the full article, go to : ASSOCIATED PRESS/ABC

CAIRO , Egypt —In the Middle East, Jordan is known as a tolerant country, but when a Muslim man converted to Christianity two years ago, a court convicted him of apostasy, took away his right to work and annulled his marriage.

Such prosecutions are rare — because they’re hardly ever needed. The law heavily discourages — or outright forbids — conversion by Muslims in most nations in the region. But weighing against it even more heavily are the powerful influences of family and society.

The sensitivity of the issue is highlighted by the case of an Afghan man who faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity — creating an outcry in Western nations, which pressured Afghanistan for his release.

After an Afghan court dropped the charges against Abdul Rahman, 41, Muslim clerics threatened to incite people to kill him and hundreds demonstrated against the court decision.

But Afghanistan isn’t the only U.S.-allied government where Muslim converts to Christianity are threatened with execution.

Saudi Arabia neither permits conversion from Islam nor allows other religions in the kingdom. There are no churches and missionaries are barred.

While Islam accepts Christianity as a fellow monotheistic religion, Islamic Sharia law considers conversion to any religion apostasy and most Muslim scholars agree the punishment is death. Saudi Arabia considers Sharia the law of the land, though there have been no reported cases of executions of converts from Islam in recent memory.

The only other nation in the region that carries the death penalty for apostasy is Sudan . Though no executions have been reported recently, a Sudanese man who allegedly converted was arrested in 2004 and reportedly tortured in custody.

In Kuwait , a court convicted a Shiite Muslim man who publicly proclaimed his conversion to Christianity, but didn’t sentence him since the criminal code did not set a punishment.

Other countries in the region, such as Egypt , do not have laws criminalizing apostasy, but those who do convert can still face prosecution.

In May, an Egyptian man who converted to Christianity was arrested on suspicion of “contempt for religion,” a charge that entails a prison sentence of up to five years, said Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. The man, who has not been identified, remains in custody without charge, Bahgat said.

Authorities in Egypt and most other Arab countries will not recognize a conversion from Islam in official documents, such as identity papers, which usually state a person’s faith.

Even if a convert is not prosecuted, “the issue is the pressure they are going to face from their families, the religious establishment, their friends and associates,” said Fadi al-Qadi, a Middle East spokesperson for Human Rights Watch. “It would be overwhelming. They would be really isolated.”

There are exceptions. In strongly secular Turkey , a convert can walk into a Demographic Records office, sign a declaration saying they have converted from Islam to Christianity and leave an hour later with a new identity card reflecting the change. While Islam is the religion of 99 per cent of Turkey ‘s 71 million people, it has no official religion.

” Turkey is a democratic country and, according to law, you can choose whatever you want,” said Soner Tufan, himself a convert from Islam, who runs a Christian radio station in Ankara . But, he said, “if someone converts, they can suffer some problems from their friends, relatives and neighbours” — or face difficulties getting a job in the civil service.

The November 2004 case of a Jordanian man convicted of apostasy came after his wife — who remained Muslim — and her family reported he had converted. The man appealed his conviction but lost.