Human rights advocates and Christian organizations expressed outrage yesterday over the plight of a man in Afghanistan facing possible execution for converting to Christianity from Islam.

A court in Kabul held a one-day hearing last week in the case of Abdul Rahman, who grew up as a Muslim in Afghanistan, but converted about 15 years ago while working with a Christian-run refugee aid group in Pakistan, the Associated Press reported.

The prosecutor on the case told the wire service that Mr. Rahman “must” be sentenced to death for the crime of apostasy, or renouncing one’s religion. His bible is being used as evidence of his guilt, the prosecutor said.

“It’s a disgrace,” the Asia director for Human Rights Watch, Brad Adams, said. “Freedom of conscience is a universal right and no religion has any right to stop someone from changing to another one.”

Afghanistan’s foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah, was asked about the case during a visit to Washington yesterday. At an event at the Heritage Foundation, he said he was not “updated” on Mr. Rahman’s situation, but added, “The issue will be dealt with, what I can say is, according to the constitution of Afghanistan.”

Mr. Abdullah also met yesterday with Secretary of State Rice. It is not clear whether she raised Mr. Rahman’s case in those discussions, but a State Department spokesman told reporters that American officials are tracking developments “very closely.”

“It’s important we believe that the Afghan authorities conduct this trial and proceedings that lead up to it in as transparent a manner has possible,” the spokesman, Sean McCormack, said. “Freedom of worship is an important element of any democracy and these are issues as Afghan democracy matures that they are going to have to deal with increasingly.”

The State Department’s reaction was restrained compared to that of Christian groups. The president of the Washington-based Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, described the case as “horrifying” and urged President Bush to dispatch Vice President Cheney or Ms. Rice to Afghanistan to “read Hamid Karzai’s government the riot act.”

Mr. Perkins said in an e-mail to his group’s members that the prosecution cast doubt on the wisdom of America’s military campaign to overthrow the Taliban regime in “How can we congratulate ourselves for liberating Afghanistan from the rule of Jihadists only to be ruled by Islamists who kill Christians?” he asked.

Mr. Perkins also charged that the prosecution violated assurances the Bush administration offered Christian groups last year after they expressed concerns that Afghanistan’s constitution could be used to persecute non-Muslims.

Another human rights organization, International Christian Concern, issued a statement arguing that Islam’s holy book, the Koran, encourages freedom of worship and rejects coercion in matters of religion. “The Afghani authorities should drop this case immediately,” the Christian group’s president, Jeff King, said. “The world is watching to see if Afghanistan has entered the 21st century. We urge Afghanistan not to return to the days of the Taliban.”

Mr. Adams of Human Rights Watch said the prosecution was driven more by politics than religion. “This represents politics in Afghanistan being played out on this guy’s body,” the human rights activist said.

Mr. Adams said that as part of efforts to win support from a regional warlord, Abdul Sayyaf, President Karzai has allowed the continuing presence of Islamic hard-liners on the country’s supreme court. American officials have wavered in their approach to the warlords, at times embracing them and at other times portraying them as obstacles to a strong central government.

“What’s happening in this guy’s case can be directly traced to the failure to root out the warlords,” Mr. Adams said. “This is not what’s supposed to be happening in the new Afghanistan.”

Mr. Adams said he doubted that most Muslims view apostasy as a crime. “There would be no Islam if that rule had been in place before their conversions took place. It’s a completely inconsistent and contradictory position to take,” he said.

A spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, which has intervened on behalf of Christian prisoners seized by Islamic militants in Iraq, said the group had no comment on Mr. Rahman’s case. “We haven’t dealt with that issue,” the spokesman, Ibrahim Hooper, said.

One news report yesterday suggested the Afghan government could seek to defuse the controversy by declaring Mr. Rahman insane. The judge assigned to the case said in an interview that Mr. Rahman was being examined for mental problems. “He is not normal when he talks,” the judge, Ansarullah Mawlazezadah, told ABC News.

Judge Mawlazezadah said the easiest way to resolve the case would be for Mr. Rahman to switch back to Islam. “We will ask him if he has changed his mind about being a Christian,” the judge told ABC. “If he has, we will forgive him, because Islam is a religion of tolerance.”