Sudanese mom re-arrested a day after being freed from death row
Sudanese mom re-arrested a day after being freed from death row
Meriam Ibrahim and Daniel Wani married in a formal church ceremony in 2011.
Sudanese authorities have re-arrested a young mother a day after she was freed from death row where she'd been sent for refusing to renounce her Christian faith, according to a report.
Meriam Ibrahim, who gave birth in a Khartoum prison after being sentenced to death in May for allegedly converting from Islam to Christianity, was arrested with her family at Khartoum airport as she tried to leave the country, the BBC reported . About 40 security agents detained Ibrahim - along with her husband Daniel Wani and their two children, the sources said.
It was unclear what new charges Ibrahim faced or why her family was detained.
Ibrahim, 27, refused to renounce her Christian faith in court in May, prompting a judge to sentence her to hang for apostasy. The case became an international cause, with several U.S. lawmakers and the State Department blasting the decision as barbaric. Sudan's national news service SUNA said the Court of Cassation in Khartoum on Monday canceled the death sentence after defense lawyers presented their case, and that the court ordered her release.
Ibrahim's husband, Daniel Wani, holds dual U.S.-Sudanese citizenship, and Ibrahim's supporters argued that their children, including a daughter named Maya born in prison in May and a 20-month-old boy named Martin who was imprisoned with her, are U.S. citizens.
Sources close to the situation told FoxNews.com on Monday that Ibrahim's lawyers were scheduled to meet with representatives from the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday.
This is a huge first step, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organization Subcommittee, said after the Monday announcment. But the second step is that Ms. Ibrahim and her husband and their children be on a plane heading to the United States.
Ibrahim and Wani were married in a formal ceremony in 2011 and operate several businesses, including a farm, south of Khartoum, the countrys capital.
Wani fled to the United States as a child to escape the civil war in southern Sudan, but later returned. He is not permitted to have custody of his son because the boy is considered Muslim and cannot be raised by a Christian man.
Ibrahims case first came to the attention of authorities in August, after members of her fathers family complained that she was born a Muslim but married a Christian man. The relatives claimed her birth name was Afdal before she changed it to Meriam and produced a document that indicated she was given a Muslim name at birth. Her attorney has alleged the document was a fake.
Ibrahim says her mother was an Ethiopian Christian and her father a Muslim who abandoned the family when she was a child. Ibrahim was initially charged with having illegitimate sex last year, but she remained free pending trial. She was later charged with apostasy and jailed in February after she declared in court that Christianity was the only religion she knew.
I was never a Muslim, she told the Sudanese high court. I was raised a Christian from the start.
Sudans penal code criminalizes the conversion of Muslims to other religions, which is punishable by death. Muslim women in Sudan are further prohibited from marrying non-Muslims, although Muslim men are permitted to marry outside their faith. Children, by law, must follow their fathers religion.
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I was never a Muslim, she told the Sudanese high court. I was raised a Christian from the start.
Sudans penal code criminalizes the conversion of Muslims to other religions, which is punishable by death. Muslim women in Sudan are further prohibited from marrying non-Muslims, although Muslim men are permitted to marry outside their faith. Children, by law, must follow their fathers religion.
I will never understand this type of thinking.
In happens in some other Islamic countries as well:
Good grief! Let her go to the US! If she is such an anathema to them, then let her leave...
That would be logical but
sudan is run under different rules