Victory for Meriam, but not out of danger yet...

June 24, 2014
by Faith J. H. McDonnell

Excerpt:
...Meriam’s release is a great victory for religious freedom, but she is not out of danger yet. Her life is still threatened by the Islamists who first brought the accusations against her, including a man who claims to be her half-brother. It is now the responsibility of the U.S. government to protect the wife and children of American citizen, Wani, and to help them to return to Wani’s home in Manchester, New Hampshire.

In addition, the ideology of Shariah and jihad of the Islamists who threatened Meriam is the official ideology of the Sudanese government. This supremacist ideology still threatens the freedom, dignity, and very lives of all the Sudanese people. Meriam is the starfish flung back into the ocean when so many are stranded on the beach.

Khartoum’s Shariah court had sentenced Meriam to death by hanging for the crime of apostasy. Under Shariah she was considered a Muslim because her father was a Muslim, even though she grew up as a Christian under the care of her Ethiopian Orthodox mother. She was also sentenced to receive 100 lashes for adultery for her relationship with Daniel. Under Shariah, their marriage was not recognized because a Muslim woman cannot marry a Christian man. The death sentence had been postponed for two years, to give Meriam time to breastfeed baby Maya, but she could have been subjected to the lashes at any day now, if the appeal had not been successful.

Meriam’s attorneys submitted an appeal soon after the sentence was confirmed by the Shariah court on May 15 and had been waiting to hear the court’s judgment. According to Middle East Concern in a June 23 news release, “the Appeals Court overturned the conviction on procedural grounds, on the basis that the prosecution provided insufficient evidence to prove the claims against Meriam and that the defense had not been given adequate opportunity to cross-examine witnesses or provide their own witnesses.”...  the rest