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.
Professor– could you please update this story? Meriam had her baby 2 days ago. I was unaware that her husband was an American citizen & our government is doing nothing to get them out. All 3 are in peril…
There is a petition on the white house website that only has 10% of the signatures needed to (??) request the help of our government…
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/act-case-meriam-ibrahim-sudan-and-her-baby-and-toddler-prison/D1x1q4VG
something tells me the brother brought this case because he too was depending on his sister and her having a 2nd child has left him out of the game of dependency otherwise why didnt he bring these charges when his sister first declared that she was going to marry a christian man? , or when she had the first child?
funny thing is the fanatics themselves never make it to paradise as they call it because they have taken a religion of peace and turned it into a religion of hatred and abuse something which the QU’RAN is totally against
MERIAM has given birth to a baby girl ~ MAYA…
Pray for their release!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/sudan/10857502/Sudanese-woman-sentenced-to-death-for-apostasy-gives-birth.html
Here is the link to the Reason magazine interview with Hirsi Ali
http://reason.com/archives/2007/10/10/the-trouble-is-the-west/singlepage
Hirsi Ali interview with Reason Magazine is the source of some of the controversy following her.
Exerpt:
Hirsi Ali: Only if Islam is defeated. Because right now, the political side of Islam, the power-hungry expansionist side of Islam, has become superior to the Sufis and the Ismailis and the peace-seeking Muslims.
Reason: Don’t you mean defeating radical Islam?
Hirsi Ali: No. Islam, period. Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now. They’re not interested in peace.
Reason: We have to crush the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that mean, “defeat Islam”?
Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars. Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and they’re the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, “This is a warning. We won’t accept this anymore.” There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.
Reason: Militarily?
Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you don’t do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.
Karen, no one apologizes for extremist Muslims. I’ve never seen it here even once. Sometimes you make very exaggerated claims.
Islamic extremists in Pakistan murdered a visiting American doctor who was going to volunteer at a cardiac hospital. His crime: he didn’t belong to the “right” kind of Islam and followed another prophet. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/05/26/gunmen-in-pakistan-kill-american-doctor-in-front-his-wife-son/?intcmp=latestnews
Regarding “foreign aid”. America should start by ending all of it. Then, have Congress consider requests individually. Right after they have ruled up or down on every judicial nominee before Congress and right after they have voted up or down to pave roads in our poorest states. Do not allow the Executive Branch to unilaterally grant foreign aid to any territory or so called nation state. The Sudan needs to be put in a special category of pirate territory. Do not allow Americans visas to go there. Forbid trade with Sudan by American companies. No Peace Corps. No emigration from Sudan to the United States.
You don’t like that Paul? How about sepharic, work better?
Paul,
You are correct, but there were still issues with the Turks. But the Spanish knowing how to raise money quickly started killing the Jews or converting them or expelling them from Spain. Which provided an ample treasury to finance many conquistadors.
Something about the incas and Aztec being cast off as well. Is there really much difference?
Keebler – you really need to bone up on your history.
It is time to stop giving money to the Sudan and to enact stiff sanctions against them.
Nick S I could not agree with you more about Ms. Ali . The fact that she has been silenced for telling the truth about Islam in the name of “tolerance” is a travesty. She is a hero and an inspiration.
And cue the apologists who inevitably claim that Christianity is just as bad each and every time Muslims abuse someone.
Keebler – no, not much has changed. The difficulty is that they believe that Allah Himself wrote the Qu’ran. So there can be no argument about relativism. No New Testament. No change.
There were efforts to modernize, become more secular, but extremists have swept through the region.