Western diplomats seeking release of aid workers

A US official in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, told IRIN on Wednesday that diplomats from Germany, Australia and the US hoped to travel to Kabul on Thursday to visit eight foreign staff members of the German-based relief agency Shelter Now International, arrested over the weekend for promoting Christianity.

“We would like to see an early resolution of this,” the embassy official said. “We would like to see these people released.”

The eight - four Germans, two Australians and two Americans - were arrested over the weekend together with 16 Afghan nationals for allegedly working to convert Afghan Muslims to Christianity, a charge punishable by death under the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Shari’ah law.

A senior Taliban official said on Tuesday that the authorities had strong evidence to prove the workers were involved in trying to convert Afghan Muslims, the Pakistani daily newspaper The News reported.

The Taliban’s Deputy Minister for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, Mohammad Salim Haqqani, had shown reporters computer disks containing the story of the life of Christ in the local Dari language, a copy of the Bible in English and Dari, a book on Christianity and the written confession of one of the accused, the report said.

In an interview with the Afghan Bakhtar Information agency, Haqqani said the books were found in the organisation’s office, and were being read by children and adults there for study purposes. He added that “without compulsion”, the accused had confessed to these anti-Islamic deeds, and begged for forgiveness from the Islamic Emirate [the Taliban] and Muslims, the report said.

A spokesman for the Australian High Commission told IRIN that the Australian, German and US embassies had agreed on a fully coordinated approach towards attaining the detainees release, and hoped to get consular access to them as soon as possible. He said that, as of Wednesday afternoon, the embassies were still awaiting word on their visa requests from the Taliban embassy in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

On Tuesday, the office of the United Nation’s Coordinator for Afghanistan expressed serious concern over the arrests, and said members of its staff had met Taliban officials.

“We are given to understand a review of the case against the foreigners and the Afghan nationals arrested is under way and is expected to be completed within a few days,” the UN regional coordinator in Kabul, Eliane Duthoit, said.

The UN has not met the imprisoned aid workers but has been given assurances of their wellbeing, according to a press statement. The organisation was in constant touch with officials from the embassies of the international staff arrested in order to provide all necessary support for bilateral initiatives and discussions with the Taliban, it added.