“In terms of punishment the one who comes to a Muslim country to convert people to their religion must face the strongest punishment. The first choice is death and the second life in prison.”

So says Sayed Murard Shrifi, "a religious cleric who is head of the public court in Baghlan" in response to the kidnapping at gunpoint of 23 South Korean Christians on their way to work at a hospital in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The man who claimed responsibility threatened to kill the missionaries if their government doesn't immediately withdraw the 200 engineers, doctors and medical staff that comprise their military presence in the country.

The lives of these 23 young believers hang in the balance because, as their missions director released in a statement, they couldn't "turn away from poor people and children there just because of safety risks."

You can read more here. What aggravates me most is that I had to wade through story after story about Potter-mania and never found much more than this small amount of information. Thankfully there was a brief yahoo headline about the possible murder of German hostages that first alerted me to what was going on.