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Sudanese judge in Khartoum on Thursday sentenced to death a woman who is eight
months pregnant for abandon her Muslim faith by converting to Christianity, convict
her under the country’s strict Islamic sharia law.
Mariam Yahya Ibrahim was convicted
last Sunday but had been given until Thursday to renounce.
"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 told 27-year-old Ibrahim as the
verdict was read out in the Khartoum district of Haj Yousef.
The defendant reacted without
emotion to her sentence, which also included 100 lashes for committing
"adultery" for having married a non-Muslim man
Under sharia
law, which has has been in force in Sudan since 1983, conversions
are punishable by death.
Mariam was born to a Muslim father,
but changed her faith when she married her Christian husband, a South Sudan
national, human rights activists said.
According to Amnesty International, Ibrahim was raised as an
Orthodox Christian, her mother's religion, because her Muslim father was
absent.
Earlier in the hearing, an Islamic
religious leader spoke with her in the caged dock for about 30 minutes.
Then she calmly told the judge:
"I am a Christian and I never committed apostasy."
Sudan has a strongly Islamist
government but, other than floggings, extreme sharia law punishments have been
rare.
Outside the court, about 50 people
held up signs that read “Freedom of Religion”, while some Islamists celebrated
the ruling, chanting “God is Greatest”.
Young Sudanese university students
have mounted a series of protests near Khartoum University in recent weeks
asking for an end to human rights abuses, more freedoms and better social and
economic conditions.
Western embassies have, along with
human right activists, condemned what they said were human rights abuses and
called on the Sudanese Islamist-led government to respect freedom of faith.
"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," the embassies of the United States,
Canada, Britain and the Netherlands said in their statement.
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