Afghanistan: Christian aid workers risk death penalty

Afghanistan´s Taliban rulers have arrested 24 aid workers, including two Americans, on charges of trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.
The Taliban said the aid workers will remain jailed and their office closed until they complete a probe into whether they were spreading Christianity. Promoting any religion other than Islam is a crime punishable by death in the 95 percent of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban´s strict brand of law.
Taliban radio said on August 4, the agency´s staff were arrested while trying to convert members of an Afghan Muslim family by showing them material about Christianity on a computer. The organization, Shelter Now International (SNI), is run in Afghanistan by a German-based Christian relief agency called Vision for Asia. It distributes humanitarian aid and builds shelters for impoverished Afghans and opened offices inside Afghanistan last year. The Kabul office was later sealed by enforcement officers from the Taliban´s ministry for promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, witnesses said. The officers reportedly seized a Bible, two computers, Christian literature translated into the local Dari language, cassettes and musical instruments.
So far, the Taliban have refused to allow anyone to visit the 24 aid workers, but a spokesperson for the ministry for promotion of virtue and prevention of vice said they were all in good condition.
Two Americans, four Germans and two Australians were among those held, according to a Taliban official. The Taliban said about 60 children, who were allegedly being taught by the Christian workers, had been sent to a correctional facility. SNI, a non-governmental organization supported by a number of Western countries, has been running relief projects for Afghan refugees in Pakistan for the last 16 years.
In 1990, the U.S.-based SNI group faced similar charges for its actions in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan.