Sudanese Death Sentence Woman To Be Freed Soon
” Sudan appeared to be bowing to international pressure on Saturday night to free a woman sentenced to death for apostasy. A foreign ministry spokesman said that Meriam Ibrahim would be released and not face further charges.
But lawyers for 27-year-old Ms Ibrahim expressed skepticism that she would be freed so quickly.
“ It’s a statement to silence the international media,” said Elshareef Ali Mohammed. “This is what the government does. We will not believe that she is being freed until she walks out of the prison.”
He said he had even heard reports that the spokesman was in the UK on medical leave when he told the BBC she would soon be freed.
“ If they were to release her, the announcement would come from the appeal court, and not from the ministry of foreign affairs. But at least it shows our campaign to free Meriam is rattling them. We must keep up the pressure.”
The sentence, which was first reported in The Telegraph on the day that Judge Abbas Khalifa handed down his ruling, caused anger which has mushroomed into a global campaign to free her. In Sudan, abandoning Islam is a crime punishable by death.
The mother of two, whose husband Daniel Wani has dual American-Sudanese citizenship, insists that she was raised as a Christian. She says her Muslim father abandoned the family when she was a child.
Mark Simmonds, the Foreign Office’s Africa minister, said on Saturday that Britain was “putting intense pressure on the Sudanese government” to ensure her release.”
Note that the pressure is coming from Britain and it’s leaders and not from our Muslim-apologist White House , even though the woman carries dual citizenship with the US and not the UK .
” On Tuesday, Ms Ibrahim gave birth in prison to a daughter, Maya – her second child – which poured fuel on the fire of criticism. Mr Wani provoked an outcry when he told The Telegraph that his wife had been forced to give birth in a clinic in the prison, rather than in hospital, and with her legs still shackled.
His comments were republished in the Sudanese daily Alyoum Altali newspaper, and clearly shook the government in Khartoum. “They wrote about how a campaign was starting in the UK, and talked about Western involvement to save her,” said Mr Elshareef. “They said that it was damaging the reputation of Sudan.”
A day after the birth, the government sent in the reporters to justify Ms Ibrahim’s detention.
“ They interviewed a scholar, who goes into the prison to teach the women about Islam,” he said. “She also said that Meriam is a Muslim, because she is part of this campaign by some Islamists to claim that she committed apostasy. But everyone who knows Meriam knows that she is a Christian, and this is not true.”
—
YouViewed/Editorial 