An Islamist judge in Sudan has ordered the flogging – and then execution – of a Christian woman who refused to convert to Islam, triggering alarm for American government officials as well as leaders of key international ministries.
According to a report from Morning Star News, Judge Abaas Al Khalifa on Thursday condemned Meriam Yahia Ibrahim, pronouncing, “The court has sentenced you to be hanged till you are dead.”
The woman, raised as a Christian and married to a Christian man, was accused of being a Muslim, and then leaving Islam because her father, who abandoned the family when she was a young child, was Muslim.
Her life as a Christian now then triggered an accusation of, and conviction for, apostasy, or leaving Islam.
The judge had, on April 30, given Ibrahim, 27, who is being imprisoned with her 20-month-old son, two weeks to convert from Christianity to Islam.
U.S. State Department officials said the situation is cause for alarm.
“We are deeply disturbed over the sentencing today of Meriam Yahya Ibrahim Ishag to death by hanging for apostasy. We are also deeply concerned by the flogging sentence for adultery. We understand that the court sentence can be appealed,” the department said in a statement.
“We continue to call upon the government of Sudan to respect the right to freedom of religion, a right which is enshrined in Sudan’s own 2005 Interim Constitution as well as international human rights law.
“We call on the Sudanese legal authorities to approach this case with the compassion that is in keeping with the values of the Sudanese people,” the statement said.
Christian Solidarity International-USA President John Eibner said that public pressure should be used to get Muslims to denounce the actions by the Sudanese judge.
“It is normally important in cases like this to keep the media spotlight on the victim. The human rights campaigner should also ask the most influential Islamic authorities, such as the Keeper of the Two Holy Sites, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, and the Grand Imam of Alazhar to condemn the sentence and intervene to save her life,” Eibner said.
Islam analyst Robert Spencer says that the United States government could do more than issue statements, but the administration is hindering itself.
“It’s possible that the Obama administration could put pressure on the Sudanese government to release this woman and give her protection from Shariah vigilantes, but because of the administration’s willful ignorance regarding jihad and Shariah, it will certainly not do that,” Spencer said.
Islam analyst and author Pamela Geller agrees that the Obama administration will do little in response to Ibrahim’s conviction.
“A U.S. president who cared about victims of Shariah could call for her release, focus world attention on her plight, and get the U.N. to call for her release,” Geller said. A staged military strike could even be used, she said.
“He could even send the troops he has tied down in the Afghanistan fool’s errand to Sudan to ensure that this woman and others like her are safe. But we don’t have that kind of president,” Geller said.
Eibner says understanding Islam and Shariah law is key for Americans to understand this case.
Spencer agrees, but adds that the American people will likely have little response because the people are ignorant about those two subjects.
“The mainstream media, as well as the government, lies consistently and continually to the American people about the nature of Islam. Most Americans have no idea that Islam has a death penalty for apostasy.
“The international human rights community is also severely derelict. It hasn’t called attention to this or done anything to stop. No significant force is standing against the Muslim organizations such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation that claim that any defense of people like this woman would be Islamophobic,” Spencer said.
“Westerners don’t understand cases like this because they’re being lied to on a massive scale about what Shariah is all about,” Geller said. “The media whitewashes Shariah every way it can.”
Ibrahim was charged with being married to a Christian man, a marriage that is not recognized because Muslims insist she is Muslim.
So according to Islamic law, she is guilty of adultery, officials said. The other charge was apostasy, for allegedly being a Muslim and then converting to Christianity.
A Justice Center Sudan report says that the defendant was first arrested in September on suspicion of adultery.
Her brother is reported to have been the one who filed the criminal complaint against Ibrahim, but it was later learned that the couple had been married in a church in 2012.
The African Center for Justice and Peace Studies said Ibrahim’s case demonstrates inconsistency in Sudanese law because of Sudan’s diverse population.
According to Morning Star News, other Sudanese who were convicted of leaving Islam later recanted their “new” faiths to avoid execution.
“I am a Christian, and I have never been a Muslim,” Ibrahim told Al Khalifa in court.
The report said Ibrahim was born to a Sudanese Muslim father who disappeared from her life when she was six years old and an Ethiopian mother who was Ethiopian Orthodox. Though her mother raised her as a Christian, Islamic law asserts that she was Muslim by birth because her father was Muslim.
Her advocates said she is due to give birth soon, and it is expected the flogging would happen when she recovers.
An appeal will be pursued, and a lawyer for the Justice Center Sudan, which has been working on her case, said, “Meriam is very encouraged by the international support she is receiving from the international community. She hopes that people stand with her and her family until she gets her freedom.”
Her husband, Daniel Wani, is a south Sudanese national who also has U.S. citizenship. He said his wife is not getting adequate medical care and her delivery date approaches.
The report said the ramifications of the case also could include a dissolution of the marriage, since Muslim officials don’t recognize it, and that would mean their children would become wards of the state, no matter the result in her case.
No one has been executed for apostasy in Sudan since the Sudan Criminal Code of 1991 made it punishable by the death penalty.
“Mrs. Ibrahim’s sentence is inhumane and unwarranted,” Kiri Kankhwende, press officer for Christian Solidarity Worldwide, which has advocated for her along with other international organizations, told Morning Star News.
“CSW calls for it to be annulled and for the immediate release of Mrs. Ibrahim and her son, who is being held in violation of article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.”