Pregnant Sudanese Woman On Death Row, Mariam Yahya Ibrahim Ishag, Is Shackled At Her Ankles, Husband Says

Sudan. May 21, 2014

A desperate husband who travelled from the States to Sudan has described the horror of visiting his heavily pregnant wife on death row.

A Sudanese court has sentenced Mariam Yahya Ibrahim Ishag, 27, to death after she left Islam and married her Christian husband.

The decision to sentence the woman to death by hanging for "apostasy" and flogging for "adultery" has been condemned as "truly abhorrent."   

Her husband, Daniel Wani, was allowed to visit his wife for the first time on Monday where she is being held along with the couple's 20-month-old son, Martin.

"Her feet are shackled. Her legs are swollen,” Tina Ramirez, executive director of Hardwired, a US-based advocacy group against religious persecution, told the New York Daily News.

“It’s just outrageous. She’s eight and a-half months pregnant.”

Wani is appealing his wife's execution, which officials said won't be held until after Ibrahim gives birth and nurses her infant.

The father is not even allowed to care for Martin because he is a Christian and his son is considered a Muslim.

Wani now lives in Manchester with his brother Gabriel, who told WMUR that his sibling had returned home to do everything he could to save his wife.

Gabriel Wani said: "I’m just praying for God. He can do a miracle. Everyone is depressed. You don’t believe it. It’s shock."

Sudan has a majority Muslim population, which is governed by Islamic law. It rules that apostasy - the abandonment of one's religious faith - is a crime.

"The fact that a woman has been sentenced to death for her religious choice, and to flogging for being married to a man of an allegedly different religion is appalling and abhorrent," Manar Idriss, Amnesty International's Sudan researcher, said in a statement.

"Adultery and apostasy are acts which should not be considered crimes at all. It is flagrant breach of international human rights law."

Earlier in the hearing, an Islamic cleric spoke with Ibrahim in a caged dock for about 30 minutes, AFP reported.

Then she calmly told the judge: "I am a Christian and I never committed apostasy,"NBC news reported.

Comments
WILLIAM6/27/2014 6:18 pm
I WOULD LIKE TO SAY THAT DEEDS WAS NOT BEST AT ALL COST MAY OUR SUPREME DAD TALK ON HER BEHALF AS WELL AS HER TODDLER.BECAUSE SUCH AWFUL ACT IS LIKE MARRING TO SOMEBODIES RIGHT AND FREEDOM WHICH WAS NOT GOOD HENCE IT IS TIME FOR GOD TO INTERVENE!GOD FORBID!!!!!
Licia Macaluso-Rabitoy5/25/2014 3:13 pm
I am sure that Allah would not want this and his words in the Quran are being terribly twisted to satisfy some human agenda. The people of Sudan Muslims, Christians, Jews and Agnostics should stand up for their Human rights and worship the way they want to. After all God gave us free will.
Sanity Now5/25/2014 4:13 am
It is not apostasy to believe in Christ because Christ began the one true religion? That is an out right lie and thus apostasy. Judaism is not a religion? Was not Christ a Jew? And is not being a apostle of a religion contrary to the one that is charging apostasy exactly what apostasy is?

I wont even get into the charge of adultery not being a crime and the Bible's sentence for it.

These people are animals to even think of hackling a pregnant woman? Um ... can Christians not read? They are staying her sentence until the unborn child is born and done nursing, so they won't be hanging an pregnant woman, they will be hanging the mother of a 4 year old and a 1 year old who committed a crime.

This is the kind of stupid thinking that gets people in trouble. How many people have Christians tortured and murdered for not being Christian?

Should she be executed for her beliefs? HELL NO, no one should be... but if she knowingly preached the gospel in a country where it is forbidden, she rolled her dice and lost.

May god have mercy on her soul, because the Sudan Government probably won't.
O.N.P.5/24/2014 7:10 pm
God is love not hate.
Robert Darryl Hidalgo5/24/2014 11:14 am
The Sudanese government is looking tyrannical in the eyes of the world and is doing a great, grave injustice to the followers of Islam worldwide.

You cannot help who you fall in love with. I know Muslims in Norway and in America who do not use religion as a tool to bully their faithful. Sudan should be so enlightened.

Besides, the wife may act as a witness of the love and of the mercy of Allah in her marriage. She admitted to not giving up her Islamic faith, so what is the problem? It appears that the Sudanese are not familiar with mixed-religion marriages.

Putting to death Mariam Yahya Ibrahim Ishag would show that the Sudanese government is not a credible association and that the Sudanese government is in desperate need of dissolution at the hands of the global community.

As peaceful as all the Muslims I know are, I just cannot believe the Sudanese could possibly misinterpret the Quran in such a demonic way.

May Allah bless Mariam Yahya Ibrahim Ishag and her family and inspire the Sudanese to show mercy to this good woman.

Barbara5/24/2014 7:19 am
May God bless her all through this horrendous experience. She will absolutely be very close to Christ and all of Heaven. I will pray for you Meriam and for your freedom.
Pam5/24/2014 2:00 am
Christians around the world need to storm heaven wih prayer ! This is the devils work. Where are the leaders of the countries that are doing nothing? Pray and fast for their release! This is the face of evil.
Karen XConnaughton5/23/2014 10:17 pm
The Koran supposedly teaches LOVE..what sort of sick people are they, they are not practising what Mohammed taught!

Release this women immediately. May God help this family.
Jose M. lartigue5/23/2014 7:18 pm
Free Mariam!
Donna Mangano5/23/2014 5:46 pm
My words cannot express the absolute horror of this situation. My constant prayers for her freedom from this oppression and for her little son as well. God is greater than any evil...May Mary the Mother of Christ, and all the choirs of angels surround Meriam and her son with protection and peace.
Donna M
Gail Ramplen5/23/2014 4:59 pm
This is totally barbaric!!!!! Murderous and evil. It would be easy and natural to wish that the sentence rebound on the heads of those involved in this evil - but that would be very unchristian - since God is Love and loves these people even when they flagrantly defy His Law of Love, choosing the evil one as their father instead. May they repent of their evil before satan claims them as his own for all eternity.
L. 5/23/2014 4:58 pm
It is not apostasy to believe in Christ because Christ began the one true religion. These people are animals to even think of hackling a pregnant woman. It is horrific. But God gave us all free will and these people are using their God-given free will to torture this woman and her toddler. They will pay when they face God one and spend eternity in Hell while the woman and the children will reign in Heaven. What is happening is unforgiveable.
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