Carol,

you see a connection that is not there in reality. As the SPIEGEL article shows this particular understanding of a part of the Muslim faith has come to Afghanistan with the Taliban and has stayed after they were forced out of power.

Bush had very different reasons for the attack on Afghanistan than their position on apostasy. Apostasy has not even been mentioned as a reason for that would have been too laughable as a reason for a war.

I also would not advise the Western forces in Afghanistan to force a change of the constitution or to consider killing for that aim. Any change in that respect has to come from within the Muslim community to be a lasting change. The hearts and the minds have to change and not only the constitution. What would a change of the law bring as long as your neighbours still kill you when you openly declare you're an apostate?

But what we can do, what other countries can do, is to denounce any punishment for apostasy in any country to be a violation of human rights and to be in violation of the UN charter. Sanctions also could be a possibility.

As it happens all countries in violation of this particular human right are predominantly Muslim countries with a constitution and laws based upon the sharia. Not all Muslim scholars see this interpretation as correct or binding. But the fundamentalist movement in the Islam, those who are called Islamists, see that interpretation as the correct one. This thinking has no place in a tolerant and multiethnical world.

Wolfgang