UPDATE: The Freedom From Religion Foundation has emailed a “call for action” on this issue, part of which I reproduce below. It gives a link to a petition and contact information for the Sudanese embassy:
TAKE ACTION
Spread the word via social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter!
You can copy and paste the following message (or write your own) to the contacts listed below:
Please do everything in your power to halt the execution of Meriam Yehya Ibrahim and grant her clemency. She should not be hanged to death for the victimless crime of apostasy. Please immediately intervene to save this mother and prevent a grave miscarriage of justice.
The post of U.S. ambassador to Sudan is currently vacant. The embassy is headed by Chargé d’Affaires Joseph Stafford. The American, Canadian, British and Dutch embassies in Khartoum have issued a statement of “deep concern” over the sentence.
You can contact the Sudanese embassy online here. [JAC: the direct email link is here, send a message if you are so inclined]
MEDIA
Pregnant Christian Woman in Sudan Sentenced to Death for Apostasy
_____________
Meriam Yehya isn’t dead yet, but, according to the BBC, she’s received a sentence of lashing and then hanging from a Sudanese court. Her crime: apostasy. You know by now what that means. She’s supposedly a Muslim who has left the faith, and for that sharia law prescribes death. (The penalty is also approved by a substantial fraction of the world’s Muslims). But, at least according to the article, her crime was not as simple as abandoning Islam. She isn’t really a Muslim. And she married a Christian man, which is illegal in Sudan.
Amnesty International said the woman, Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag, was raised as an Orthodox Christian, her mother’s religion, because her father, a Muslim, was reportedly absent during her childhood. In court, the judge addressed her by her Muslim name, Adraf Al-Hadi Mohammed Abdullah.
But that didn’t even matter:
She was convicted of adultery on the grounds that her marriage to a Christian man from South Sudan was void under Sudan’s version of Islamic law, which says Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslims.
(She was given three days to “recant” but refused.) Nor did it matter that she was married, for marrying a Christian is “adultery.” Here’s the unhappy couple: 
Oh, and did I mention that she is eight months pregnant? On this end the Muslim judge showed infinite mercy:
The judge also sentenced the woman to 100 lashes after convicting her of adultery – because her marriage to a Christian man was not valid under Islamic law. This will reportedly be carried out when she has recovered from giving birth.
Praise Allah that they won’t lash a pregnant woman! That’s truly a religion of peace.
And there’s even more mercy:
Local media report the [hanging] sentence on the woman, who is pregnant, would not be carried out for two years after she had given birth.
The Independent in Ireland adds that she is a physician, and that her 20-month old son is in jail with her. The article has the absolutely accurate headline: 
Amnesty International has objected, while there were a few supporters of the sentence (and some supporters of Dr. Yehya) outside the courtroom. The Independent notes other countries’ objections:
In a joint statement, the embassies of the US, UK, the Netherlands and Canada expressed “deep concern”.
“We call upon the government of Sudan to respect the right to freedom of religion, including one’s right to change one’s faith or beliefs,” it said.
Okay, so where are the objections from other Western countries, and, especially, from Islamic-majority countries? Don’t expect them. Where are the “moderate” Muslims crying out en masse against this kind of barbarism? Don’t expect it. The Islamic moderates, by and large, simply keep silent when something like this happens. Would Catholics keep silent if a woman were sentenced to be burned at the stake for leaving Catholicism?
This is precisely the kind of idiotic, medieval mentality that Ayaan Hirsi Ali spent her career decrying—especially the complete disenfranchising of women in many Islamic countries. I’m now reading her book Infidel, and if you haven’t read it, I recommend doing so, especially if you think Brandeis had any good reason to withdraw her honorary degree. (BTW, do read Timothy Egan’s great criticism of the “commencement police” —which doesn’t mention Hirsi Ali—in yesterday’s New York Times.) Infidel is a terrific and eye-opening read, and makes it shockingly clear how women are treated as property, not as people, in places like Sudan, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia. I’ll add to that Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran.
This behavior is incompatible with Englightenment values, humanism, and simple human decency. I consider Brandeis, by rescinding Hirsi Ali’s honorary degree, as complicit in this behavior, tacitly punishing her “Islamophobia” instead of rightfully lauding her fight for women’s rights under Islam—a fight that has forever cost her a normal life. She will be under armed guard until she dies (no thanks to Reza Aslan, the Islamic “moderate”).
Women like Meriam Yehya will continue to be lashed, stoned, and hanged until Islam becomes genuinely moderate, something that I don’t see happening in the near future.
And how can we even countenance any society in which half its members—those with two X chromosomes—aren’t allowed to follow their aspirations? In many places they’re forbidden from even getting an education. What a waste of human potential!
h/t: Barry
Well spoken.
Very bad. Very sad. Very true.
Those of us who live in muslim-dominated cultures have to live with these kind of craziness, and have to devise zigzag-ing techniques to avoid unnecessary IEDs along the way.
Sudan is an extreme case, but as shown by the Bruneis, this kind of things is always around the bend. The Achehs, the southern-thais, the Poso. Behind every sheiks’ eyes, greed for women, wealth and envy always threaten to erupt into muslim-mayhem.
These are real feminism issues, as well as many other cultural issues ..
(maybe if american fundies got their wishes to create a real xtian-fundie nation out of USA then the world will really realize what craziness fundamentalism can be, as it is currently happening in many part of islam-fundie nations in varying degrees of reality)
Only level of hitler’s atrocities were able to push for Human-Right Declarations. Maybe fully fundie americas will help the world see now?
Hear hear. Islam, like fundamentalist Christianity and ultra orthodox Judaism is an abomination in the world.
Indeed, which is where a small ray of hope comes from. Societies that squander half their human resources, to use the corporatized language, are going to be at a competitive disadvantage to those who give everybody a chance to thrive. As such, over evolutionary periods, we should expect such barbaric societies to be outcompeted by less insane ones. Not that that does much good to the individuals trapped amongst the barbarians….
I think what’s driving this is a seriously amped up version of the impulse to measure one’s self not in absolute but relative terms. In domestic politics…well, the home state of the Koch Brothers is Kansas, and Kansas is one of the best places on the planet for wind energy. They’ve not only got lots of wind, they’ve got a very solid aerospace industry; Cessna has been building planes in Wichita for ages. But the Koch Brothers make their money on oil, not wind, and so they’ve tried (fortunately, with little success) to kill the wind industry in their home state of Kansas. Objectively, this makes no sense; Kansas with wind and oil is much richer than Kansas with just oil. But that would also raise the stature of people not the Koch Brothers, even if it would probably also raise the stature of the Koch Brothers themselves. And, so, they choose to stomp on others to maintain the separation rather than to, as the saying goes, let the rising tide float all boats.
Now, take the corporate shenanigans of the Koch Brothers, translate that to Islamic gender relations, and pour lots of testosterone and religious faith on it as accelerants…and the result isn’t anti-environmental power politics, but pregnant women being sentenced to torture and death. And, fundamentally, not Dr. Yehya isn’t going to be killed because she’s not a Muslim so much as because her persecutors feel a pathetic need to make less of her so they feel superior to her in relation. Just as, if the Koch Brothers were true industrialists they’d invest in hometown wind, if her persecutors were actually civilized, they’d fund a clinic for Dr. Yehya rather than torture and kill her.
It’s the schoolyard bully picking on the most vulnerable child on the playground, writ large with whips and rope.
b&
Somehow I fail to see the proportionality.
Ted Kennedy opposed wind farms in view of his luxury seaside house.
How is that like cliterectomies or stonings for apostasy?
Jesus Christ. Seriously?
I also compared it to the mentality of a schoolyard bully picking on the weakest kids in the class. Was that trivializing it, too? And I made note that there’re evolutionary factors at work that should hopefully diminish this sort of behavior over the long run. Did that miss the proper proportionality as well?
What is it about people’s attitudes towards Islamic women that make them cry, “Disrespect!” any attempt at deconstruction and analysis of what motivates those who oppress them?
b&
Ben was simply enlisting the aid of something familiar in explaining the psychology. Not comparing the behaviors.
Really? Schoolyard bullying is in the same universe as forced cliterectomy? What an odd thought. Ask your daughter about this. Or ask your son if teasing is as bad as having his penis cut off without anesthesia.
Bear in mind that most adults frown on bullying. Bullies are always the bad guys in movies. So it happens, but is never admired.
Compare that to officially sanctioned practice.
Well, I think you totally missed the point there…
/@
You win the prize in the Missing the Point contest. Nice going. Not.
He didn’t see that nightjar coming, did he?
But the Koch Brothers make their money on oil, not wind, and so they’ve tried (fortunately, with little success) to kill the wind industry in their home state of Kansas. Objectively, this makes no sense; Kansas with wind and oil is much richer than Kansas with just oil.
Not that this seems to be doing Kansas much good, since Gov. Brownback merrily gave it all away, and more, in tax cuts to the hyper-rich like, oops, the Koch Bros. See “After Huge Tax Cuts For The Rich, Kansas’s Economy Is Foundering” at http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/05/16/3438587/kansas-growth-projections/
Yes, but the gap between rich and poor is growing, even if the rich aren’t as rich as they could be. That’s the goal of the exercise there — and in the case of Dr. Yehya, save with naked violent power substituted for the power of money and politics.
Again, the goal in the minds of these sick fucks on both sides of the globe isn’t to climb as high as you can; it’s to put as much separation as possible between you and somebody else. Here we do it through taxation and crony capitalism; there, they do it through lashes and nooses.
The impulse is the same. We’ve blunted its force, somewhat. The Islamists, stuck in the middle ages? That’s the pure, uncut stuff.
It’s also an example of one of those perhaps-not-unintended consequences of Hammurabic types of legal systems, which is what’s being used to give an imprimatur of officialdom to Dr. Yehya’s injustice. The disproportionality of the punishments serves to push the punished that much farther below the officials. You could attempt to reform the thief who stole the loaf of bread so he could pay taxes and build society, or you can cut off his hands and then it’s really clear that he’s inferior to you. And think of how powerful you must be if he’s so much less than you!
And what better target for such an exercise than an intelligent woman, a doctor?
b&
It is an interesting hypothesis. I think it is important to recognize that the power dynamics of this appalling case are enabled by religion, Islam in particular, but not caused by the religion, per se, but by the people who wield it.
Religion is a tool that is especially powerful in aiding group think and for othering, making it “ok” to perform heinous acts upon human beings. There are other tools for group think, such as nationalism, racism, etc. that can also be used to the same end. Getting rid of Islam will not rid the world of the abuse of women, though I think it would help a lot. It is important to look beyond religion through to the underlying psychology that powers it, as well. And shouting down attempts to deconstruct the full range of investigation of the problem is an own goal. I think that we can recognize this horrible religious abuse of women as such, condemn Islam and the people who practice it in this manner, the people who think they are moderate but condone this, and, at the same time, look to understand the psychology and dynamics that lie deeper than the surface.
I think the way that I’d put it is that these problems are older than Islam — much older; see the Pentateuch for evidence — and the problem with the Islamic world is that it hasn’t done nearly as much as the Western world to address those problems and grow out of them.
As such, it’s hardly surprising we see echoes worldwide, from the boardroom to the playground. The key question is figuring out what’s different about Islam that’s got it stuck in the Dark Ages. Once we know that, we might not only have an insight into figuring out how to pull the Islamic world, kicking and screaming, into the modern era…but we might also be able to figure out how to finish applying the cure to ourselves as well.
b&
“The key question is figuring out what’s different about Islam that’s got it stuck in the Dark Ages.”
The difference is that the Qur’an, unlike the Bible, is considered by its followers to be the direct word of god and is thus immutable. There will be no Reformation in Islam like there was in Christianity unfortunately.
I think it’s a waste of time to try to persuade people to follow a more liberal version of Islam, as it will eventually sink back into the hardline version.
The only solution I can see is educating people (especially women) about the folly of Islam.
Sorry, but that doesn’t wash. Christians especially call the Bible the Holy Word of God, and large numbers of followers consider it infallible and / or inerrant.
Here’s a good starting point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inerrancy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_infallibility
Cheers,
b&
Concur, having grown up amongst ’em.
Oh I’m not contending that Christians think that it’s inerrant/infallible etc., but as I said the Qur’an is considered to be, word for word, >directly< from god, not a collection of books from many third parties written over a lengthy span of time.
Hence why you always hear Muslim apologists saying that it must be read in the original Arabic in order to fully comprehend it since that's the language that 'god' chose, and why they boast that not a single word has been changed since the birth of Islam (a claim that's certainly up for debate), since to do so would be to change god's word and commit heresy.
You still get the exact same from Christians. Seriously. And many point to the KJV as having been divinely inspired and transcribed in a process comparable to the claimed as the genesis of the Qur’an. And even Catholics, I’m pretty sure, take a similar stance towards the now-lost-to-history “original sources” of the Bible.
b&
Yes, it is true that Christians and Jews have some pretty regrettable history.
And perhaps it is unrealistic to expect the entire world to move ethically at the same rate and to the same conclusions.
That doesn’t mean that we can’t complain about it. I am pretty sick and tired of hearing criticism of atrocities labeled as phobias of one kind or another.
So are we all, when it’s clear that the alleged phobia is really just thoughtful criticism.
Who here is claiming we can’t complain about or criticize certain behaviors or ideologies?
“Societies that squander half their human resources, to use the corporatized (language . . . .”
Yes, that is the attitude of the Masters of Mankind toward the rest of us. We’re “resources” and “capital.” “Master-Servant” is the basic concept of U.S. employment law.
“Employee” – “Worker” – (indentured – re: dentures, teeth, dent, cut out a piece of one) “Servant” – “Serf” – (wage) slave.
Countdown to someone claiming that this is all the fault of 19th-century British colonialism: 5…4…3…2…
or, alternatively, claiming we have no right to criticise because women in mediaeval Europe were also lashed or executed for sexual “crimes”: 5…4…3…2…
States that impose laws and penalties like this should be expelled from the United Nations. No civilised nation should have anything to do with them.
States that impose laws and penalties like this should be expelled from the United Nations. No civilised nation should have anything to do with them.
I kind of agree, but the counterargument is powerful too: if they’re isolated they might become even worse. Hard to know.
…or US Hegemony. That’s always a good one.
“…in mediaeval Europe…”
Since this year is 1435 in the Muslim comparison, mediaevil Europe seems the right comparison, i.e, pre-reformation, pre-enlightenment, and the renaissance (which probably affected only the elites – this is a guess) only just getting under way.
Were our mediaevil ancestors to see our modern world what would they make of our freedoms and those of us who exercise the freedoms?
I’m cautiously optimistic that exposure to the modern world and the economic consequences of rejecting it will eventually transform Muslim society, but probably neither soon nor painlessly.
“Okay, so where are the objections from other Western countries, and, especially, from Islamic-majority countries? Don’t expect them. Where are the “moderate” Muslims crying out en masse against this kind of barbarism? Don’t expect it. The Islamic moderates, by and large, simply keep silent when something like this happens. Would Catholics keep silent if a woman were sentenced to be burned at the stake for leaving Catholicism?”
I wouldn’t mind seeing an international survey on these issues. Do people really think this sort of injustice is proper, or are they unaware or uncomprehending of what’s really going on?
And don’t forget the ever present con-man conspiracy theorist of Islam, who claims it a clever story designed by the Western media to spread Zionism and exalt pigs and ethyl alcohol or some such nonsense.
I not only challenge Islamic apologists to denounce this, but to go to Sudan and denounce it – or explain why they won’t.
“Where are the “moderate” Muslims crying out en masse against this kind of barbarism?”
-Where, indeed? Good post, Jerry.
+1
I remember watching Richard Dawkins on a tv program asking a “moderate” imam about what the penalty for apostasy should be. The imam, could not and would not deny that the penalty is death, because the Koran is very clear about that. This is one of those times I’m glad Christians and Jews are wishy washy about parts of the bible given that the Old Testament very clearly says that believers must kill anyone who tries to talk them or their family into believe in other gods.
I think Jerry’s point about Brandeis tacitly enabling this kind of inhuman treatment of women rescinding Hirsi Ali’s honorary degree is apropos.
Islam is pernicious, more so than many other religions.
Actually I remember that. And it was actually worse than what you describe: here.
The imam basically says “Yeah, Islam clearly says it’s death but only in Islamic countries and GB is not an Islamci country so what’s the big deal?”
The link is not working, so trying again:
Hopefully this will work!
Doesn’t for me. Sorry.
It’s interesting that I haven’t heard of any punishment for her husband; isn’t he guilty of luring her away from her supposed “faith”? Or did Mohammed forget to make up something about that?
If the news accounts are correct, she was actually raised a Christian – only her father was Muslim and he left his wife and family when his daughter was 6 years old. So Meriam Yehya is no more Muslim than you are.
This whole accusation rests on the fiction that if your father is Muslim then so are you: therefore she is an apostate for being a Christian, and therefore she is committing adultery because her marriage to a non-Muslim is suddenly not recognised.
The whole thing is quite peculiar and I can only wonder at what the real motivations are behind this. Someone has suddenly got an issue with a 27 year old married, female doctor and has been able to use this barbaric law to try to destroy her and her life.
This appears to have originated in a family dispute over her marriage, but followed the Abrahamic logic when it reached the [religious] courts. Original intent, don’t you know.
As for liberal cultural relativism, I heard a 20 minute or so BBC radio segment — all hands were agreed it was unjust “because she was raised a Christian” and there should be a human right to one’s chosen religion. No one brought up the right to disbelieve ALL religions, nor was anyone willing to suggest that one might have a right to public disbelief. The general tenor was that this was some backwater exception despite her clearly being educated and middle class..
I often wake up believing that Stephen Pinker’s case for progress away from tribalism and toward tolerance is justifiable. I usually go to sleep thinking that Mark Twain’s principled and universal misanthropy is more realistic.
Poor woman – can’t help but despair at the total insanity of it all.
Still, jolly decent of them to wait until she’s had the child. FFS.
On Youtube is “Nude protest for Women’s Day Maryam Namazie.”
It takes some depth and breadth of courage, which would give most of us pause, to resolve to present oneself thusly in defiance of and in the face of bloody Islamofascists. The very idea that circumstances are such that women must steel themselves to run such a public gauntlet to stand their ground and make their point.
That’s not the video to watch.
This one is, the inaugural edition of Maryam’s new TV magazine, Bread and Roses, devoted to the topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqwxd4JC88c
It’s a must-see video, and especially for those upset with me over in that other thread.
The second (and latest) in the series, on Sharia Law, is equally compelling and insightful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4K0BMKSbnE
Maryam’s obviously on a roll, and I really hope she keeps it going.
Cheers,
b&
One possible moderation of Islam is (and I do not endorse this) that women in countries where they are oppressed stop taking the poisson of their religion. They stand up with their lives against religion. A great tragedy of humanity would come to us all as thousands, if not millions, of woman stand before men pursuing no relations with them until this nonsense ends. Which, initially, it would not, and their torture and death would result. But the long term hope would be that enough men would see that their sisters, their mothers and their daughters are completely against them and life without women requires them to dispose of religiously justified inequality.
This is awful. I am holding out hope that the sentence will never be carried out and she will gain asylum quietly in Scandinavia or somewhere after a quiet deal.
Quietly, to avoid embarrassing moderate muslims? Not an ideal solution really.
The only crime of this woman was to have a Moslem father and a Christian mother. The truth of the matter is that if this execution takes place it will be murder in the minds of every person on this planet except Moslems.
Depends on time and place. Your point is well taken. Contemporary Islam is uniquely depraved. But I’m always uncomfortable with the “Where are the moderate Muslims?” line. The moderate Muslims are intimidated, exactly like just citizens of Mississippi were in the middle of the 20th century. We can be too confident of our courage when it isn’t called for.
But things won’t change until people find that courage. Moslems who don’t live in medieval tribal societies but who remain silent about these kinds of injustices either lack moral courage or they are brainwashed. Those who are not brainwashed should speak out.
Seems like people inclined to speak out are also inclined to leave the faith altogether: Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Maryam Namazie, and the like.
Combine that with the tendency of Muslims to behead apostates, and it might be a bit understandable why those not brainwashed are keeping their heads down.
b&
I agree that the question about the Catholics is severely subject to “O tempora, o mores!” : there were times and places in the not so distant past where the (recent) ancestors of our societies were behaving in not so different ways. The response of European Christian governments to Jews seeking asylum from the policies of the Third Reich comes to mind. While there were some highly publicised shining stars of support for the refugees from that odious ideology, there was an awfully large amount of response ranging from flat out apathy to aggressive disinterest (“Let Hitler do the job so that we don’t have to face the question, whatever the question is.”)
And as for what local (i.e. pretty much anywhere between the Equator and the Mediterranean, and between India and the Atlantic Ocean) “moderate” Muslims are truely feeling … well, I’ll ask how many good, god-fearing white Americans in the 1930s US South were actively fighting against the black-oppressing laws and social norms of that day and age (“Jim Crow” ; isn’t that the nick name for that society?). It is genuinely hard, personally dangerous even, to stand up when you’re embedded in a culture where a race to extremism is going on.
None of which makes what is actually going on any the less disgusting or reprehensible. But having been robbed at gunpoint twice last night – by the police, of course – I’m not really in the mood to criticise people who aren’t particularly keen on sticking their heads above the parapet to get stoned.
“But having been robbed at gunpoint twice last night – by the police, of course . . . .”
How did they rob you, and on what pretext?
I didn’t have my passport, yellow fever vaccination certificate and Letter of Invitation on me when I took the taxi from the hotel to a restaurant. Police roadblock – choice of being locked up for a week or two until I’d paid the accruing fines and my accommodation fees, or … that’s 2/3 of the fine level in CFA in your pocket – that’ll do for my pocket.
Returning from the restaurant (where I could pay my bill in Euros, which were in a different pocket) in a different taxi, a different police roadblock took my Euros.
The taxi driver wasn’t too pleased either – particularly when my bank card wouldn’t work in the hotel’s ATM (50% probability, IME ; which is why I had CFA and Euro cash on me). Fortunately I had cash stashed in my room, and a different bank card, so once I’d persuaded him that I wasn’t going to do a flit, I got him paid off.
Plainly the police are all in the employ of the Gabonese tourist and development ministries. Actually, one theft took place just outside one of the ministry buildings, but I forget which one. Possibly it was “les Flics” instead of the normal Gendarmerie.
(I should point out that I learned a long time ago to lock my passport and at least one credit/ bank card in a case secured inside the hotel room’s safe. You do expect to be robbed at some point.)
As I said the next morning, when the company bus to take us to the airport went past a half-hour late, “Bienvenue á l’Afrique!”
I’m an Orthodox Christian. I think Catholics do care about this. I found out about this from a Catholic. When I posted it, other Christians, including Catholics reposted it. Certainly a posting on fb doesn/t mean anything in and of itself but Catholics today (practicing devout ones) are generally NOT apathetic to the suffering of non-Catholic Christians, ESPECIALLY Orthodox.
Anyway… I don’t expect that countries will say much at all (even “catholic” ones) because they don’t care about religious persecution. I’m shocked this story even made it to the secular media. There is nothing alarming about this story (unfortunately) if one follows what has been happening to Chrsitians all the time in the ME over the last few years or more.
Josh
Jerry’s point about the silence of moderate Muslims is apt, but since this woman was raised Christian, and she married a Christian, where are all the Christian voices of opposition? Rather than spend all that energy on persecuting African homosexuals, why aren’t the megachurches working to help people like Dr. Yehah?
And this
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/16/murder-in-pakistan-police-station-raises-concerns-of-intolerance
Fucking disgusting.
I just finished reading Hirsi Ali’s book “Nomad”. I would highly recommend it, as not only is it a good read, it is very enlightening on understanding how Islam is affecting all of us. Hirsi Ali pulls no punches and is adamant about how the West must respond to Islamist actions.
Reblogged this on The Road.
sub, frothing at the mouth, flailing about, hurling epithets at vile, wicked, ghastly Islamofascists.
I’m interested in any pearls of wisdom Ariana Huffington may have uttered about this.
FWIW, I used the Brandeis University contact web page to send them the following message:
“You recently rescinded an invitation to Hirsi Ali because Islamic apologists accused her of islamophobia. So the news that a nominal christian, a pregnant woman, in Sudan has been sentenced to death for apostasy from the Muslim faith probably bothers you not at all:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/sudanese-woman-sentenced-to-death-for-apostasy-marrying-a-christian/
If you felt any shame you would issue an apology to Ms. Ali.”
I’ve e-mailed the Sudanese embassy to protest. I’ve also e-mailed 16 Christian relatives, friends, and acquaintances to inform them. We’ll see.
People whose response to this I’d most like to read:
1) The trustees of Brandeis University.
2) Reza Aslan
3) David Bentley Hart (or Karen Armstrong)
Jerry, the link in the update to sign the petition seems to link to the University of Chicago mail server or something, not to the petition…
I saw that too; guess I should have said something earlier.
Gerry, I don’t often comment here (and I haven’t read all the comments). However, I am in the UK and all my “leftie” friends are wetting their pants about UKIP and something called England First. WTF, these people are irrelevant! If they take votes from the Tories, then it’s all good. However, I posted a link to the petition. Zilch, nothing, nada. I added a BBC link to the story. Ditto. I can only conclude that these so-called leftwingers think that basic human rights are only for well-heeled, WHITE, Giardian reading women. So what’s new. Sorry, I am deeply upset about this.
why can’t they see how wrong that is though? where the f**k has values of human morality gone ugh
Religion is there to give people a sense of community, and hope for you future and of those you love, and a that you will always be with those you love. It is comfort but to use it in this way is to abuse the power it has over people, religion shouldn’t be there to control. I hope for the sake of human kind and the respect and love we should show each and everyone of us, Meriam Yehya Ibrahim will get her freedom.
“Religion is there to…” — But that’s no justification for religion: No-one needs religion to have hope for their future or of those they love.
“and a that you will always be with those you love”
Misguided wishful thinking. If everyone realised that this is the only life they have, they might do a better job of living it well and making sure that others could too.
/@
Hipocricy. Its not important if that is spelt wrong, but how on Earth can this be ‘god’s’ will? If he were real it wouldn’t be. This is the will of animals. ( apologies to all real animals by the way).
How is it that she has a 10 year old son and she is just now being condemned for apostasy and adultery?
Clearly there’s more to this story.
Not that any such “more” could possibly justify this barbarity.
Here is my letter to the Emassy of Sudan.
Dear Sir/Maddam
It is with great regret that I have to write a letter like this in the first place, to try and save some one from being put to death, for nothing more than falling in love, but we both know that won’t happen. It is also with great regret that your sentence of 100 lashes after convicting her of adultery, because her marriage to a Christian man was not valid under Islamic law, because she is a woman, is nothing more than a display of the horrors that the world around you sees every day.
Meriam Yehya, will be another victim of your so called religion of peace, another victim on the pile of corpses for your god, Allah. And what of it, what does it change in the end, other than you destroying a life as well as destroying a family? Maybe you need such displays of horrors, to fear people into staying in the most appalling religion known to mankind. Do you actually feel any better killing your sons, daughters, mothers and fathers, friends and lovers, and allowing extremists to continue to do so, or do you like watching your people kill each other? I honestly have to ask you which is it?
No one blames Allah for your atrocities, because he is not manifest in anyway shape or form here, and since you claim that your god is the same god of the Jews and Christians, you can only pretend to understand these fantasy beings through prophets of Earthly origins. So in the end we can only blame you, because only men can cause such pain and suffering on Earth. You can however change this, you can start by allowing Meriam Yehya to live her life, to take care of her child, to lover her husband. There are so many more deserving men and women of lashing and hanging, then someone falling in love with someone, for who they are and what they are. Your choice is simple really, you can choose to commit the sentence given to Meriam Yehya, and remain a useless backwater religion of death, or choose this time to reconsider the world’s view of your most loathsome idiosyncrasy, the subjugation and murder of the women of Islam.
+n; n >> 1.
Reblogged this on Tonysweet johnson.
You have to be kidding! !!!
Meriam Yehya gave birth to a healthy baby girl in the early hour today. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-27586067
Sadly, there is no sign a reprieve from the death sentence or 100 lashes handed down by the Sharia court.
Her lawyers have lodged an appeal on 22nd May, on the grounds that the sentence contravenes the Sudanese constitution.
She remains in prison with her son and new daughter.
The Sudanese government earlier stated that the original Sharia court ruling was against the Sudanese constitution, which guarantees religious freedom. Today, they have announced that Meriam Ibrahim is to be freed: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-27651483
I just hope she manages to steer clear of the self-righteous Islamic fundie loons who will probably be lying in wait.
latest news is here that she soon will be released!