Probably everyone has heard that Abdul Rahman, the Christian convert in Afghanistan who was facing a death sentence if he wouldn’t recant his faith, has been extradited to Italy. Anyway, you can read about it here.

But apparently, there are other Christians in Afghanistan that are still in trouble.

And, annoyingly enough, TIME magazine has chosen to do a hit piece on Rahman, alleging that he’s a deadbeat dad and all-around jerk. That may even be true, but as Get Religion points out, it’s hard to see where that’s relevant:

No one was arguing that Rahman should live because he was a good person. Instead, people were arguing that Rahman should not be killed for converting from Islam. While more information about Rahman is needed and desirable, I’m not sure statements from the police reports that led to his life-threatening situation are the best character witnesses.

And it’s hard to miss the agenda behind this oddly-timed article, especially when the story’s opening graph spells out who it is they really have in their crosshairs:

Western leaders breathed a sigh of relief yesterday at the release of Abdul Rahman, a Christian convert who had faced the death penalty under Afghanistan’s Islamic law for renouncing his Muslim faith. Rahman, 40, has become the poster boy for the Christian right and for religious freedom. Closer up, however, the picture painted by the local police who arrested him shows a candidate not quite ready for family values.

Not a lot of code words there. Same old language, and the same old formula — try to dig up dirt to prove the guy’s a hypocrite — even though you’d think that a cooler, more objective mind might have discerned that Rahman’s values aren’t the issue.

Another dissection of the piece here.