Sudanese Judge Sentences Christian Woman To Be Flogged and Hanged After Giving Birth Unless She Renounces Her Religion

Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, 27, is a mother living in a Sudanese prison with her 20-month old son awaiting for the implementation of the latest example of abuses under Sharia law. Ibrahim is a Christian and a Sharia court judge in Khartoum sentenced her to be hanged for refusing to renounce her religion after she gives birth to her second child and nursed her child for two years. She was given three days to renounce her faith to avoid flogging and hanging. It is that like perverse type of accommodation that has defenders claiming that Sharia law is really more humane and enlightened than Western law. For the rest of humanity, it is an unspeakable atrocity.

Ibrahim was raised by her Ethiopian Christian mother after her Muslim father abandoned her and the rest of her family. She was only six when the father walked away from the family. It is understandable why she considered herself a Christian, but Sharia courts do not care if she was raised a Christian and had only a brief relationship with a unfit Muslim father. She is a Muslim in the eyes of Islamic law and thus, starting at age 6, her adoption of Christianity makes her an apostate. Furthermore, she was sentenced as an adulterer for her relations with her Christian husband and sentenced to 100 lashes after she delivered her child. Since Sharia law does not recognize her marriage to her husband Daniel Wani, she is treated as an adulterous. He is also banned from seeing her. She is now eight months pregnant and is shackled by her feet while being held in a disgusting Sudanese jail. Her husband, who is disabled, is now destitute because he relied on his wife.

She was arrested in August 2013 after her own brother invoked Sharia law and opened a case against her and her husband for alleged adultery. So her own brother is responsible for her sentence to be savagely flogged and then hanged after birth. All in the name of Islam.

Amnesty International and other groups continue to fight for her sentence to be reversed by an appellate court.

Regardless of the outcome of the appeal, the problem is the imposition of religious law on citizens — particularly the 1991 provision making apostasy a crime punishable with death. Apostasy laws should be a deal breaker in our international aid to countries. It represents the combined denial of the freedom of religion, speak, and assembly. It is the violation of the fundamental definition of human rights. However, because we continue to use Sudan in our fight against terrorism, the U.S. government continues to send aid to the country. We also have a good-faith reason for trying to help the impoverished population in a country that has historically had a corrupt and violent government. Yet, to date in FY 14, the U.S. Government has provided more than $146.6 million in humanitarian assistance to Sudan which denies the most basic rights to its citizens and implements an abusive Sharia system that allows for the execution of woman who refused to renounce their faith.

After flogging, of course, because it is important to the court to satisfy the moral dictates of faith-based justice.