Chancellor must try to prevent execution of a Christian doctor

The Society for Threatened Peoples sends an appeal to Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Human Rights Commissioner of the Federal Government, Christoph Strässer, to try to save the life of a heavily pregnant Christian woman in Sudan, who is to be executed because she allegedly seceded from Islam and committed adultery. "Meriam Yahia Ibrahim must not die simply because there is less and less religious freedom in Sudan in order to enforce the Islamization of the country," said Ulrich Delius, the STP's Africa-consultant, in Göttingen on Tuesday. "The case of the pregnant doctor is especially tragic because she never really belonged to the Islam." Last Sunday – Mother's Day – the El-Haj-Yousif Court in Khartoum sentenced the 27-year-old mother of a 20-months-old son to death. Before the execution, she is to receive 100 lashes. The sentences are to be carried out after childbirth.

A relative had reported the doctor. She was imprisoned on February 17, together with her little son Martin Wani. In prison, the expecting mother was beaten. She and her son were denied adequate medical care. In a court hearing on April 18, three witnesses had testified that Meriam Yahia Ibrahim grew up in a Christian family, but the judges could not be convinced. The young woman is the daughter of an Orthodox Christian woman from Ethiopia and a Muslim Sudanese. Her father disappeared when she was six – so she was raised as a Christian. In 2012, she married Daniel Wani, a Christian from South Sudan, who had already been a U.S. citizen for several years. However, according to Islamic law, a daughter of a Muslim man is Muslim too – and marriages between Muslim women and non-Muslim men are not officially recognized, so she is considered to be unmarried. As she has already given birth to a child, she was now also convicted for alleged "adultery".

"The case of the young mother clearly shows how difficult the situation for the many Christians in Sudan has become," said Delius. "Since the independent state of South Sudan was established in July 2011, there are more and more efforts towards an Islamization of Sudan. "Now, Christians from South Sudan who had escaped to Khartoum to seek refuge from the war between North and South Sudan (which has now been going on for 37 years) are often forced to flee to the predominantly Christian south of the country. Christians are deliberately forced to report converts, in order to investigate and open charges against them. The authorities arbitrarily close down churches and refused to issue permits to build new houses of worship. 

Ulrich Delius, head of STP's Afrika department, is available for further questions: +49 551 49906 27 or afrika@gfbv.de.