Even before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 increased the media's focus Afghanistan, stories of what Afghan Christians faced could be found buried in the back pages of newspapers across the country. Saturday's Washington Post recounts the story of a learned Afghan man who owned two Bibles, but was not a Christian.

The Taliban guards again tied him on the table. This time, they poured water on his feet, then wound electrical wires around both of his big toes. The wires were attached to an old Soviet military field telephone. The guards turned the telephone's crank, sending a searing electrical current into Sayed's feet. It went on for more than an hour. He felt as if some powerful force was lifting him high off the table, then slamming him down again, over and over.

"Do you want to write (a confession) now?"

Sayed thought that if he continued to refuse he would convince them of his innocence. And he thought that if he confessed, they would kill him, probably in Kabul Stadium, where the Taliban held public executions. He imagined his body hanging there before the screaming crowd, with his own family too scared to claim it.

He couldn't pick up the pen.

They cranked the phone.

This is radical Islam. This is the purported religion of peace.