Story number 1 for 15 May 2003

(Afghanistan)–We begin today in Afghanistan where Christians believe that country’s new constitution will limit religious freedom. Voice of the Martyrs’ Gary Lane. “They’ve got a new constitution that our state department helped them draft and when questioned about this religious freedom aspect of the constitution they said, ‘look, we’re not here to tell the Afghans what they need to have in the constitution. We’re just here to make sure all the ‘i’s’ are dotted and the ‘t’s’ are crossed and that this is a legal document.'” According to Lane, if the current draft of the constitution is ratified, it would make it illegal to share the Gospel there. “If they end up with Sharia Law, we’ve seen that anywhere Sharia Law has been imposed, Christians have said, ‘No, we’re Christians and we don’t live under Sharia Law’ ,we’ve seen problems for Christians and then we’ve seen Christians taking up arms in many places to defend themselves.” He’s encouraging Americans to put pressure on their congressmen and the state department to push for religious freedom in Afghanistan.