The Taliban militia Monday ruled out pardons for eight foreign aid workers detained for allegedly preaching Christianity as diplomats prepared to visit the hardline Islamic state.
Powerful religious police minister Mullah Mohammad Wali Akhund said 24 detained aid workers, including two Americans, two Australians and four Germans, would face punishment according to Sharia law.
But he refused to explain what the maximum punishment could be or whether the detainees, who have not had contact with the outside world since their arrest, would face trial in an Islamic court in Afghanistan.
"Pardons would have been possible if they were unaware of our laws, regulations and the decrees," Akhund told reporters, adding that evidence recovered from the suspects proved their guilt beyond doubt.
"It is a great victory for Muslims around the world that these things have been discovered."
Akhund said it was "premature" to talk about possible punishment, although Taliban officials have said it could range anywhere between execution and 10 days in prison followed by expulsion.
The aid workers, staff of German-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) Shelter Now, were rounded up between August 3 and 5 and accused of preaching Christianity in the radical Islamic state.
Bibles in the main Afghan language of Dari as well as thousands of Christian computer disks have been recovered from Shelter Now's offices around the country, according to police.
Diplomats in neighbouring Pakistan said they were making arrangements to fly to Kabul on Tuesday after the Taliban embassy there gave them visas following a delay of almost a week.
Embassy sources said the envoys from Australia, Germany and the United States have been refused permission to visit the detainees however until investigations were complete.
"We will of course continue to press for consular access to the Americans," a US embassy spokesman said, adding that Consul General David Donahue had been granted a visa.
"We will be asking to meet with the Taliban authorities and try to determine more precisely what the aid workers are charged with ... and what penalties they might be subject to."
A German embassy spokesman said the Afghan Support Group of some 15 donor countries would meet later Monday to discuss ways of putting more pressure on the fundamentalist Islamic militia to allow consular access.
The foreigners, two men and six women, have been held with their Afghan colleagues under tight guard in two detention centres in Kabul. Taliban police have said they are in "perfect health".
Akhund, from the officially named ministry for promoting virtue and suppressing vice, hinted that the Afghan prisoners could be dealt with harshly under Taliban laws ordering the death penalty for Afghans found inviting Muslims to convert.
"What kind of Muslims are they? This NGO was involved in such activities and they were its colleagues," he said.
He also warned other foreign aid groups that they were under close scrutiny.
"All security, religious and intelligence organs of the Islamic Emirate (Taliban) will watch the activities of NGOs so that they don't commit the same crime," he said.
United Nations special envoy to Afghanistan Francesc Vendrell met Taliban officials on Saturday and briefed diplomats here on Monday.
The UN has expressed "serious concern" that the arrests are part of a wider pattern of harassment and abuse of aid workers who are trying to help people in a country devastated by more than 20 years of war and a severe drought.
Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Mutawakel on Sunday said police were investigating whether Shelter Now was part of some "broad conspiracy" possibly involving UN agencies -- ISLAMABAD (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
