Friday, June 27, 2014
Sudan Christian woman takes refuge in US embassy
A
Sudanese Christian woman detained when she tried to travel to the
United States after her release from death row was freed Thursday and
sought refuge at the US embassy, her lawyer said.
"She
is in the US embassy now," Mohanad Mustafa said of Meriam Yahia Ibrahim
Ishag, 26, although a spokesman at the diplomatic mission had no
immediate comment.
"She and her husband think this is a safe place for them," after receiving death threats, Mustafa told AFP.
Earlier
Thursday, Ishag had still been in police custody while her legal team
tried to find an acceptable person to vouch for her after her release.
She
is charged with forgery and providing false information in relation to a
South Sudanese travel document she used to try to leave the country on
Tuesday.
They later found a Sudanese guarantor,
he said. The person, who was not identified, provided assurances that
she would report to judicial authorities as and when required.
Ishag
had been held at the police station in Khartoum's Arkawet district
since Tuesday after national security agents stopped her and her family
from leaving Sudan.
According to her American
husband, Daniel Wani, diplomats from the US embassy had escorted the
couple and their two children to Khartoum airport, from where they
planned to travel to Washington, DC.
Wani said they "want to get out of here as soon as possible" because of the threats against his wife.
- Criminal case still pending -
But Mustafa said "there is a criminal case against her. She cannot leave Sudan."
South
Sudan's embassy says Ishag is entitled to travel with documentation
from that country because Wani and her children are South Sudanese.
Khartoum
says she should have used a Sudanese passport, and on Wednesday
summoned the charges d'affaires of Washington and Juba over the
incident.
On May 15, a lower court judge
sentenced Ishag to hang for apostasy from Islam, in a case that raised
questions of religious freedom and sparked an outcry from Western
governments and human rights groups.
Ishag was
convicted under Islamic sharia law that has been in force in Sudan since
1983 and outlaws conversions on pain of death.
An
appeal court freed her on Monday from the women's prison where she had
been detained with her children, one of whom was born in jail after she
received the death sentence.
After her release she immediately went into hiding because of the threats to her life.
Christian activists say her "alleged brother" stated that the family would carry out the death sentence if she were acquitted.
US
State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said on Wednesday that
Washington's charge d'affaires had voiced "our concern that the family
should be allowed to depart swiftly from Sudan."
According to the church, Ishag was born to a Muslim father and an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian mother.
When
Ishag was five her father abandoned the family, leaving her to be
raised by her mother, according to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of
Khartoum, which said she joined the Catholic church shortly before she
married.
it/al
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