THE FIRST GENERATION OF CHRISTIANS faced severe persecution under the Roman Empire because of their refusal to bow down to the goddess Rome and the emperor. For Abdul Rahman, a 41-year-old Afghani man who was charged with a capital offense last week for converting from Islam to Christianity, post-Taliban Afghanistan might as well have been ancient Rome. Although Abdul Rahman was ultimately freed after massive international pressure was brought to bear on Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s government, the case was dismissed because of alleged evidentiary questions: the anti-apostasy laws under which he was charged remain in place. It is only a matter of time before a similar apostasy case–either in Afghanistan or elsewhere in the Middle East–again captures the public imagination in the West.

Middle Easterners who leave the Islamic faith have faced serious persecution for decades. Many have been killed, either by the state or by their former co-religionists. But the Abdul Rahman case marked the first time in recent memory that this practice has attracted significant attention. The issue extends far beyond Afghanistan and poses a problem not just for converts from Islam, but for all those who have invested in a strategy of peace through democratization.