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[h=2]Confirmed: American's Pregnant Wife Faces Sudan Death Penalty for Not Renouncing Christian Faith[/h](UPDATED) Convicted of adultery and apostasy, Sudanese doctor will give birth to her second child this month.
Kate Tracy and Morning Star News
[ posted 5/15/2014 10:59AM ]
U.S. State Department
U.S. embassy in Khartoum
Update (May 15): Given until today to recant her faith by a Sudanese court, Meriam Yahia Ibrahim instead declared she remained a Christian at today's hearing. The judge at the Public Order Court in El Haj Yousif Khartoum then confirmed her sentence of 100 lashes for adultery and death by hanging for apostasy.
"I am a Christian, and I have never been a Muslim," Ibrahim told the judge after a Muslim scholar spent 40 minutes persuading her to recant, reports Morning Star News, which first broke the news of Ibrahim's case. In response, the judge told her, "The court has sentenced you to be hanged till you are dead."
However, the sentence is to be carried out two years after her second child's birth later this month, not shortly after the birth as previously reported.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide confirmed the death sentence in the case drawing international attention, calling the ruling a "violation of the Sudanese Constitution and of international conventions to which Sudan is party."
Middle East Concern reports that Ibrahim's lawyer is appealing the ruling. Ibrahim's husband was also not permitted to witness the hearing, and has been denied visitation rights to see his wife and son while they are detained in prison.
Ahead of today's hearing, Amnesty International condemned Ibrahim's death sentence and called for her immediate release. According to Manar Idriss, Amnesty International's Sudan researcher:
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[Originally published on May 13 (9:04 a.m.) entitled "American's Wife Faces Sudan Death Penalty after Pregnancy"]
Mother's Day was not a happy day for Meriam Yahia Ibrahim. While her second child is almost due, the 27-year-old Sudanese doctor now faces execution for marrying a Christian.
Ibrahim has been imprisoned, along with her 20-month-old son, in Khartoum since February. She is married to a South Sudanese Christian with U.S. citizenship—Daniel Wani—but because her father was a Muslim, the state does not recognize her marriage and charged her with adultery and apostasy in March. Morning Star News (MSN) has chronicled her case.
On Sunday [May 11], Ibrahim drew a fresh round of activist attention after a court convicted her and sentenced her to death for apostasy and 100 lashes for adultery. MSN has the details. Middle East Concern reports that "there is no known precedent for such a verdict and sentence being issued by a Sudanese court against a follower of Jesus in recent times."
Ibrahim's case represents the increasing Islamization of Sudan ever since the 2011 secession of predominantly Christian South Sudan. President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has made it clear that Sudan's political stance going forward is a "100 per cent Islamic constitution, without communism or secularism or Western [influences]."
"Mrs Ibrahim's sentence is the latest and most significant in a series of repressive acts by the Sudanese government against religious minorities," said Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW). "If the sentence is carried out Mrs Ibrahim will become the first person to be executed for apostasy under the 1991 penal code, prompting concerns that the charge may increasingly be used against anyone who converts from Islam."
{Christianity Today article}
And this is supposed to be a 'peaceful religion ?'
Kate Tracy and Morning Star News
[ posted 5/15/2014 10:59AM ]
U.S. embassy in Khartoum
Update (May 15): Given until today to recant her faith by a Sudanese court, Meriam Yahia Ibrahim instead declared she remained a Christian at today's hearing. The judge at the Public Order Court in El Haj Yousif Khartoum then confirmed her sentence of 100 lashes for adultery and death by hanging for apostasy.
"I am a Christian, and I have never been a Muslim," Ibrahim told the judge after a Muslim scholar spent 40 minutes persuading her to recant, reports Morning Star News, which first broke the news of Ibrahim's case. In response, the judge told her, "The court has sentenced you to be hanged till you are dead."
However, the sentence is to be carried out two years after her second child's birth later this month, not shortly after the birth as previously reported.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide confirmed the death sentence in the case drawing international attention, calling the ruling a "violation of the Sudanese Constitution and of international conventions to which Sudan is party."
Middle East Concern reports that Ibrahim's lawyer is appealing the ruling. Ibrahim's husband was also not permitted to witness the hearing, and has been denied visitation rights to see his wife and son while they are detained in prison.
Ahead of today's hearing, Amnesty International condemned Ibrahim's death sentence and called for her immediate release. According to Manar Idriss, Amnesty International's Sudan researcher:
The fact that a woman could be sentenced to death for her religious choice, and to flogging for being married to a man of an allegedly different religion is abhorrent and should never be even considered. 'Adultery' and 'apostasy' are acts which should not be considered crimes at all, let alone meet the international standard of "most serious crimes" in relation to the death penalty. It is flagrant breach of international human rights law.
World Watch Monitor reports more background on Ibrahim's case, including how her brother first notified authorities about her alleged adultery.
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[Originally published on May 13 (9:04 a.m.) entitled "American's Wife Faces Sudan Death Penalty after Pregnancy"]
Mother's Day was not a happy day for Meriam Yahia Ibrahim. While her second child is almost due, the 27-year-old Sudanese doctor now faces execution for marrying a Christian.
Ibrahim has been imprisoned, along with her 20-month-old son, in Khartoum since February. She is married to a South Sudanese Christian with U.S. citizenship—Daniel Wani—but because her father was a Muslim, the state does not recognize her marriage and charged her with adultery and apostasy in March. Morning Star News (MSN) has chronicled her case.
On Sunday [May 11], Ibrahim drew a fresh round of activist attention after a court convicted her and sentenced her to death for apostasy and 100 lashes for adultery. MSN has the details. Middle East Concern reports that "there is no known precedent for such a verdict and sentence being issued by a Sudanese court against a follower of Jesus in recent times."
Ibrahim's case represents the increasing Islamization of Sudan ever since the 2011 secession of predominantly Christian South Sudan. President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has made it clear that Sudan's political stance going forward is a "100 per cent Islamic constitution, without communism or secularism or Western [influences]."
"Mrs Ibrahim's sentence is the latest and most significant in a series of repressive acts by the Sudanese government against religious minorities," said Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW). "If the sentence is carried out Mrs Ibrahim will become the first person to be executed for apostasy under the 1991 penal code, prompting concerns that the charge may increasingly be used against anyone who converts from Islam."
{Christianity Today article}
And this is supposed to be a 'peaceful religion ?'
