Update on Abdul Rahman

Bowing to pressure from the US and its allies, Hamid Karzai's government found a way to defuse the issue. AP:

An Afghan court on Sunday dismissed a case against a man who converted from Islam to Christianity because of a lack of evidence and he will be released soon, officials said.

It's unclear whether he will stay in the country, given death threats have been made against him. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was on the Sunday talk shows earlier:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she could not confirm that an Afghan court had dismissed the case and stressed the U.S. needs to respect the sovereignty of Afghanistan, which she called a "young democracy."

"We have our history of conflicts that had to be worked out after a new constitution. And so the Afghans are working on it. But America has stood solidly for religious freedom as a bedrock, the bedrock, of democracy, and we'll see." Rice said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Score one for religious freedom.