Meriam Yahya Ibrahim and her husband. Photo, courtesy of Africa Daily Report

Amnesty says sentencing of 27-year-old for refusing to return to Islam ‘abhorrent’

A Sudanese court has sentenced a 27-year-old pregnant woman to death for converting to Christianity .

Mariam Yahya Ibrahim, who is eight months pregnant had been ordered to abandon her newly adopted Christian faith and return to Islam.

She had also been charged with adultery for marrying a Christian man.

A court in Sudan ordered that she will receive 100 lashes and be executed after the birth of her child, Ned Meerdink, a researcher with the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa, said by phone from Uganda’s capital, Kampala.

Judge Abbas al Khalifa asked Ibrahim whether she would return to Islam. After she said “I am a Christian” the death sentence was handed down, a judicial sources said.

Ms Ibrahim was convicted of apostasy and adultery on May 11th in a case that has drawn criticism from the US and UK. The court had given her three days to recant her faith.

Mother to a 20-month-old son, Ms Ibrahim says she was raised as a Christian, her mother’s religion, because her father, a Muslim, was absent during her childhood, according to Amnesty International.

She was arrested and charged with adultery in August after a family member reportedly told Sudanese authorities of her marriage to a South Sudanese Christian.

Under Sudan’s interpretation of Islamic law, marriage between a Muslim woman and a non-Muslim man is not permitted, with any such marriage considered adultery, according to Amnesty. An apostasy charge was added in February when Ibrahim said she was Christian, not Muslim. 

Outside the court, about 50 people held up signs that read “Freedom of Religion”, while some Islamists celebrated the ruling, chanting “God is Greatest”.

Young Sudanese university students have mounted a series of protests near Khartoum University in recent weeks asking for an end to human rights abuses, more freedoms and better social and economic conditions.

Western embassies and Sudanese activists have condemned what they said were human rights abuses and called on the Sudanese Islamist-led government to respect freedom of faith.

Amnesty International has described the death sentence as “abhorrent”.

“The fact that a woman has been sentenced to death for her religious choice, and to flogging for being married to a man of an allegedly different religion is appalling and abhorrent. Adultery and apostasy are acts which should not be considered crimes at all. It is flagrant breach of international human rights law,” said Amnesty International’s Sudan researcher Manar Idriss.

“Amnesty International believes that Meriam is a prisoner of conscience, convicted solely because of her religious beliefs and identity, and must be released immediately and unconditionally. The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, which includes the freedom to hold beliefs, is far-reaching and profound; it encompasses freedom of thought on all matters, personal conviction and the commitment to religion or belief,” she said.


Source: Irish Times