Sudanese Muslim woman sentenced to death for Christian conversion

[Wilikon]

EDIT: new image






Judge Abbas Khalifa asked Ibrahim whether she agreed to return to Islam. After she said, "I am a Christian," a charge of apostasy was declared and the death sentence was handed down, according to judicial sources, quoted by Reuters.

"We gave you three days to recant, but you insist on not returning to Islam. I sentence you to be hanged to death," the judge told the woman, AFP reported.

The woman had also been charged with adultery for marrying a Christian man.

Amnesty International said the woman was raised as an Orthodox Christian, her mother's religion, because her father, a Muslim, was reportedly absent during her childhood.  

Outside the courthouse, around 50 people protested the decision, holding placards that read "Freedom of Religion."

Islamists celebrated the court decision, chanting "God is Great."

Sudanese activists condemned the decision and called on the Sudanese government to uphold the freedom of belief for all people.

"The details of this case expose the regime's blatant interference in the personal life of Sudanese citizens," Sudan Change Now Movement, a youth group, said in a statement.

The embassies of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and the Netherlands released a common statement expressing "deep concern" about the court proceeding, urging the North African country of almost 31 million people to respect the religious freedom of its citizens, AFP reported.

The high-profile case comes at a time of severe economic and political hardship for the government of President Omar Hassan Bashir, which suffered a major setback in 2011 when South Sudan, the country’s main oil supplier, seceded and formed its own sovereign state.

Amid the grinding economic downturn, Bashir ordered stringent austerity measures that prompted violent protests that led to the deaths of dozens of people.

http://rt.com/news/159176-sudan-court-woman-christianity/

[TrailingComet]

Sad but such is life for minorities in a theocracy
Perverse

[bryant.coleman]

I don't understand why they are calling it as apostasy. Her mother was Orthodox Christian and that was why she was brought up in that faith. Her father has never visited her, nor offered any financial support. Is this is what the Christians get in return for their tolerance towards the Muslims in Europe and North America? Pathetic.

[GreekBitcoin]

I don't understand why they are calling it as apostasy. Her mother was Orthodox Christian and that was why she was brought up in that faith. Her father has never visited her, nor offered any financial support. Is this is what the Christians get in return for their tolerance towards the Muslims in Europe and North America? Pathetic.

>>Christian tolerance

http://www.enetenglish.gr/?i=news.en.article&id=1710

[zolace]

Muslims need to ask themselves what kind of god or religous leaders that have that support death for something thats not harmul to know one.  Sad if they gonna murder someone just cause her faith is in a different religion.  Still livin in dark times indeed.

[Kluge]

I've got to stop visiting this subforum. That whole situation is stupid beyond expression (I really have no sympathy for the woman willing to die a martyr). What's a "Sudanese activist," anyway? The chanting Islamists aren't "activists"? You can't be too disenfranchised and apathetic if you're in the streets cheering for a woman's killing because she changed religion and commits "adultery." Sounds like over-activists to me.

Heh, my family still considers my marriage to be adultery. I didn't attend the reunion that year, but I hear it caused a minor stir when a close family member requested we be added to the family registry. It's not "real" unless the government blesses it. Jeez - we aren't even gay! Luckily, nobody's enforced the Anabaptist punishment for adultery on us, yet. I can't imagine I'd do anything but laugh straight through the execution.

[Ron~Popeil]

I've got to stop visiting this subforum. That whole situation is stupid beyond expression (I really have no sympathy for the woman willing to die a martyr). What's a "Sudanese activist," anyway? The chanting Islamists aren't "activists"? You can't be too disenfranchised and apathetic if you're in the streets cheering for a woman's killing because she changed religion and commits "adultery." Sounds like over-activists to me.

Heh, my family still considers my marriage to be adultery. I didn't attend the reunion that year, but I hear it caused a minor stir when a close family member requested we be added to the family registry. It's not "real" unless the government blesses it. Jeez - we aren't even gay! Luckily, nobody's enforced the Anabaptist punishment for adultery on us, yet. I can't imagine I'd do anything but laugh straight through the execution.

I have tons of sympathy for this woman. She is going to be murdered for her religious beliefs. How does that not generation even a token amount of sympathy? Being willing to die for what you believe is a foreign concept to most of us, myself included but history is littered with brave souls that did just that and paved the way for the freedoms we are allowing to erode today. 

[bryant.coleman]

I really have no sympathy for the woman willing to die a martyr

I disagree with you. Many people in similar situations would have done the same thing that she did. She was a Christian, and was asked to convert to Islam. She refused to change her religion. I have respect for her.

I am an atheist or agnost. If someone ask me to change my religion, I'd also tell him to GTFO. Would that make me a martyr?

[Wilikon]

Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, 27, is also pregnant.

[RodeoX]

Gota love theocracy.
What kind of religious argument says that my god is so powerful that he needs me to kill a pregnant woman. 

[Ron~Popeil]

Gota love theocracy.
What kind of religious argument says that my god is so powerful that he needs me to kill a pregnant woman. 

You can tell a lot about a people by the god they worship. 

[TECSHARE]

I don't understand why they are calling it as apostasy. Her mother was Orthodox Christian and that was why she was brought up in that faith. Her father has never visited her, nor offered any financial support. Is this is what the Christians get in return for their tolerance towards the Muslims in Europe and North America? Pathetic.

>>Christian tolerance

http://www.enetenglish.gr/?i=news.en.article&id=1710

Golden Dawn are neonazis -_-
That would of course be the first place I would expect tolerance 

[dank]

People are so stupid.  There is one god, that which is all god.  I praise god, allah, whomever you may call it.  FSM, Jesus, they are all one.

[Balthazar]

I don't understand why they are calling it as apostasy. Her mother was Orthodox Christian and that was why she was brought up in that faith. Her father has never visited her, nor offered any financial support. Is this is what the Christians get in return for their tolerance towards the Muslims in Europe and North America? Pathetic.

>>Christian tolerance

http://www.enetenglish.gr/?i=news.en.article&id=1710

Golden Dawn are neonazis -_-
That would of course be the first place I would expect tolerance 

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=521074.msg6036140#msg6036140

[bryant.coleman]

>>Christian tolerance

http://www.enetenglish.gr/?i=news.en.article&id=1710

Golden Dawn are neonazis -_-
That would of course be the first place I would expect tolerance 

Well.. the blogger ridiculed a much respected religious figure, who had just deceased. This is not exactly the freedom of expression, but rather hooliganism. But it should be noted that the perpetrator received only a suspended sentence (i.e he never went to jail).

[beetcoin]

sometimes i feel like there are some other people who live in a completely different reality from mine. it's like they are living in their own egocentric, deluded world where they and their ideas are at the center of everything.

[countryfree]

I hope she can escape to Europe where she would instantly qualify for political refugee status.

[Kluge]

I really have no sympathy for the woman willing to die a martyr

I disagree with you. Many people in similar situations would have done the same thing that she did. She was a Christian, and was asked to convert to Islam. She refused to change her religion. I have respect for her.

I am an atheist or agnost. If someone ask me to change my religion, I'd also tell him to GTFO. Would that make me a martyr?

Of course that'd make you a martyr. If you're willing to die rather than say you believe in a particular set of boogeymen, absolutely. Not saying there's anything wrong with someone who'd rather die than feign beliefs, but there's no practical benefit to that, whether she insists on it or not. I lean pretty far toward hard agnosticism (you know, the "brain in a vat" & related crap), but I'm pretty comfortable saying she's dying for no legitimate purpose... but who knows what her thoughts all were here. Maybe she just wanted some type of Jizya-like status -- I could understand threatening to let a government kill you because you might be put in a reduced tax bracket and be released of conscription obligations. Not wanting to say "rock on, Allah, my rock" in court, though? Eh.

It's a terrible, threatening precedent, sure. I'm sympathetic toward the cause of being able to believe as you please without your government killing you for it. The individual woman, though - not really. I'll troll so far as to say the ideal outcome of this would be the state following through with the execution, followed by the closet Christian population rising in arms against the government, bringing global fundie numbers way down. Doesn't matter who wins so long as everyone fighting fights for boogeymen.

You know, though, I think there's an angle missing in a lot of these stories -- like who the woman actually is and why I should care about her death, or the death of everyone in Southern Sudan for that matter. Yeah, she's human, just like Hitler, so what? It's always about the state and their actions, their thought processes and laws, then the response of unrelateds. If my bud Jimbo Ayzaqyyola (I call him Allah for short) were tried and sentenced with the same results (but reverse which religious fanatics are in power) in Canada, I'd defend him, because Jimbo's a cool guy - came over for a minor plumbing issue, then freely helped me disassemble and learn about my water softener because he likes eradicating ignorance - and because he's an enjoyable, helpful fellow who did no wrong by me, shouldn't be killed, and should probably be killed for in defense of. That, I think, is a rational reason for an uprising - the "they're killing him because he disrespected Jesus" thing is secondary and frankly unimportant: it doesn't really matter why they're going to kill Jimbo if I'm reasonably sure Jimbo's a fine fellow. Maybe he catches his maid stealing from him and cuts off her hands and uses them to replace his front door knockers -- well, I'd still have to say Jimbo shouldn't go to prison because Jimbo's in my mental trust club and the laws can go fuck themselves.

This is why I don't think all these massive, consolidated governments work -- we dump the community trust thing and start insisting we need to define absolutely every "bad" action in a 200,000 page law book nobody could possibly read in its entirety before dying - they're hard as Hell to understand and frequently misinterpreted or incorrectly applied, while punishment severity seems to be assigned randomly to crimes, where possessing LSD ends up being declared worse than double homicide. It's a junk system coming out of utopian minds where a government can govern 200,000+ people and do a better job at it than a judicial system made up entirely of 100 lightly-armed guys who walk around threatening to kill people when they do something obnoxious and sometimes pulling the trigger. And it's a double-solution there, because then these odd men who aspire to shoot and protect won't kill homeless loiterers for entertainment. ..... What're we talking about?

[Ekaros]

Gota love theocracy.
What kind of religious argument says that my god is so powerful that he needs me to kill a pregnant woman. 

There is a few in bible?

[Wilikon]

I really have no sympathy for the woman willing to die a martyr

I disagree with you. Many people in similar situations would have done the same thing that she did. She was a Christian, and was asked to convert to Islam. She refused to change her religion. I have respect for her.

I am an atheist or agnost. If someone ask me to change my religion, I'd also tell him to GTFO. Would that make me a martyr?

Of course that'd make you a martyr. If you're willing to die rather than say you believe in a particular set of boogeymen, absolutely. Not saying there's anything wrong with someone who'd rather die than feign beliefs, but there's no practical benefit to that, whether she insists on it or not. I lean pretty far toward hard agnosticism (you know, the "brain in a vat" & related crap), but I'm pretty comfortable saying she's dying for no legitimate purpose... but who knows what her thoughts all were here. Maybe she just wanted some type of Jizya-like status -- I could understand threatening to let a government kill you because you might be put in a reduced tax bracket and be released of conscription obligations. Not wanting to say "rock on, Allah, my rock" in court, though? Eh.

It's a terrible, threatening precedent, sure. I'm sympathetic toward the cause of being able to believe as you please without your government killing you for it. The individual woman, though - not really. I'll troll so far as to say the ideal outcome of this would be the state following through with the execution, followed by the closet Christian population rising in arms against the government, bringing global fundie numbers way down. Doesn't matter who wins so long as everyone fighting fights for boogeymen.

You know, though, I think there's an angle missing in a lot of these stories -- like who the woman actually is and why I should care about her death, or the death of everyone in Southern Sudan for that matter. Yeah, she's human, just like Hitler, so what? It's always about the state and their actions, their thought processes and laws, then the response of unrelateds. If my bud Jimbo Ayzaqyyola (I call him Allah for short) were tried and sentenced with the same results (but reverse which religious fanatics are in power) in Canada, I'd defend him, because Jimbo's a cool guy - came over for a minor plumbing issue, then freely helped me disassemble and learn about my water softener because he likes eradicating ignorance - and because he's an enjoyable, helpful fellow who did no wrong by me, shouldn't be killed, and should probably be killed for in defense of. That, I think, is a rational reason for an uprising - the "they're killing him because he disrespected Jesus" thing is secondary and frankly unimportant: it doesn't really matter why they're going to kill Jimbo if I'm reasonably sure Jimbo's a fine fellow. Maybe he catches his maid stealing from him and cuts off her hands and uses them to replace his front door knockers -- well, I'd still have to say Jimbo shouldn't go to prison because Jimbo's in my mental trust club and the laws can go fuck themselves.

This is why I don't think all these massive, consolidated governments work -- we dump the community trust thing and start insisting we need to define absolutely every "bad" action in a 200,000 page law book nobody could possibly read in its entirety before dying - they're hard as Hell to understand and frequently misinterpreted or incorrectly applied, while punishment severity seems to be assigned randomly to crimes, where possessing LSD ends up being declared worse than double homicide. It's a junk system coming out of utopian minds where a government can govern 200,000+ people and do a better job at it than a judicial system made up entirely of 100 lightly-armed guys who walk around threatening to kill people when they do something obnoxious and sometimes pulling the trigger. And it's a double-solution there, because then these odd men who aspire to shoot and protect won't kill homeless loiterers for entertainment. ..... What're we talking about?

"You know, though, I think there's an angle missing in a lot of these stories -- like who the woman actually is and why I should care about her death, or the death of everyone in Southern Sudan for that matter."

Why should I care about your four paragraphs again? Why do you need to share your thoughts with other human beings on this forum? Why couldn't you simply ignore this thread? The reality is that even your action of writing how much you should not care about that situation defines you as a social creature with a need to share a personal story. Your personal story with your friend is no less valuable that the story of that pregnant woman. Writing those four paragraphs about your story proves it.