Sudanese woman to hang for apostasy gives birth in jail
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A CHRISTIAN Sudanese woman, sentenced to hang for apostasy in a case that sparked an international outcry, has given birth in jail, a Western diplomat said yesterday.
“She gave birth to a girl today,” said the diplomat, who is familiar with the case of Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag, 27.
“Mother and baby seem to be doing OK,” said the diplomat.
He added: “It’s cruel treatment to be in such a situation.”
The case of Ishag has sparked global outrage since a Khartoum-area court sentenced her to death on May 15.
Born to a Muslim father, she was convicted under Islamic sharia law that has been in force in Sudan since 1983 and outlaws conversions on pain of death.
“To give birth in jail is certainly not the best place, for physical and psychological reasons,” the diplomat said.
Ishag’s husband is Christian.
Ishag is being held at a women’s prison in Khartoum’s twin city Omdurman with her first child, a 20-month-old son.
“We gave you three days to recant but you insist on not returning to Islam. I sentence you to be hanged,” Judge Abbas Mohammed Al-Khalifa said as he passed the verdict against Ishag, addressing her by her father’s Muslim name, Adraf Al-Hadi Mohammed Abdullah.
Khalifa also sentenced her to 100 lashes for “adultery.”
Under Sudan’s interpretation of sharia, a Muslim woman cannot marry a non-Muslim man and any such relationship is regarded as adulterous.
“I am a Christian and I never committed apostasy,” Ishag calmly told the judge before he passed sentence.
London-based Amnesty International said Ishag was raised as an Orthodox Christian, her mother’s religion, as her Muslim father was absent.
The foreign diplomat said of her case: “For the image of Sudan, it’s certainly no good.”
Britain and Canada last week summoned the top Sudanese diplomats in their countries over the case, which they say conflicts with Sudan’s human rights obligations.
United Nations rights experts have called the conviction “outrageous” and said it must be overturned.
Ishag would be allowed to nurse her baby for two years after the birth before any death sentence is carried out, legal experts have said.
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