A Sudanese court has sentenced a 27-year-old woman to death for converting to Christianity, judicial sources said yesterday.
Mariam Yahya Ibrahim had been ordered to abandon her newly adopted Christian faith and return to Islam. She had also been charged with adultery for marrying a Christian man, something prohibited for Muslim women to do and which makes the marriage void.
Judge Abbas al Khalifa asked Ibrahim whether she would return to Islam. After she said “I am a Christian” the death sentence was handed down, the judicial sources said.
Outside the court, about 50 people held up signs that read “Freedom of Religion”, while some Islamists celebrated the ruling, chanting “God is Greatest”.
Ibrahim’s case is the first of its kind to be heard in Sudan.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. The authorities decided on Sunday to close the university indefinitely.
“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.
Western embassies and Sudanese activists have condemned what they said were human rights abuses and called on the Sudanese Islamist-led government to respect freedom of faith.
Details of case expose regime’s blatant interference in personal life of Sudanese citizens
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s government is facing a huge economic and political challengeafter the 2011 secession of South Sudan, which was Sudan’s main source of oil.
A decision by Bashir last year to cut subsidies and impose austerity measures prompted violent protests in which dozens were killed and hundreds were injured.
Meanwhile the International Committee of the Red Cross said yesterday it was planning its first airdrops in almost two decades and massively scaling up operations to help hundreds of thousands hit by fighting in South Sudan.
The Geneva-based group said it needed to get food and supplies to families cut off in temporary settlements and remote areas by seasonal rains.