Saint Abdul of Afghanistan

In Afghanistan there is a man being tried for converting to Christianity from Islam. According to the lawmakers, it's against the sharia law (law of Islam) - since some interpret the Koran as saying that if you turn from Islam you have to be killed.

A few hundred years ago, it was illegal to worship only one god, and the Romans had a field day tossing Christians to the lions for sporting and entertainment. Many of these martyrs went on to become saints (St. Blandine, St. Polycarpe, St. Pothin, and St. Irénée the martyrs of Lyons, for example)

Poor Abdul Rahman propbably won't feel comforted by this fact. But it would be interesting to see how long it will take the Catholic church to declare him a martyr, then possibly give him sainthood.
Saint Abdul of Afghanistan, the century's first official Christian martyr.

It wouldn't be quite so galling if Afghanistan wasn't a country that the US had freed and set up the government for. It seems that if the US had wanted this, they could have spared themselves a lot of trouble and bombs and just left Afghanistan to the taliban.

On a brighter note, it seems things are looking up in Iraq.
And if you believe that, go read
Riverbend's blog and weep. Bahgdad Burning