{{ Sudanese jailers removed the chains from a Christian woman, sentenced to death for apostasy, after she gave birth in prison last month, one of her lawyers said Tuesday.}}<\/p>\n
The case of Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag sparked an outcry from Western governments and rights groups after a judge sentenced her on May 15 to hang.<\/p>\n
Born to a Muslim father, she was convicted under Islamic sharia law that has been in force in Sudan since 1983 and outlaws conversions on pain of death.<\/p>\n
Twelve days after the verdict, Ishag gave birth to a daughter at the women’s prison in Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman.<\/p>\n
“They removed the chains” after she delivered, one of her lawyers, Mohanad Mustafa, told reporters.<\/p>\n
“This is on order by the doctor.”<\/p>\n
Sudanese law requires anyone sentenced to death to be shackled but Mustafa said he did not think they would be put back on again.<\/p>\n
After the delivery, Ishag was moved to the prison clinic from a cell she shared with other women.<\/p>\n
“After she gave birth the conditions got better,” Mustafa said.<\/p>\n
“She has air conditioning. She has a good bed,” he said after he and Ishag’s Catholic husband, Daniel Wani, visited her.<\/p>\n
“She’s fine. Usually her husband brings the food, and he gives her money” to buy any other items she needs.<\/p>\n
The couple’s 20-month-old son is also incarcerated with Ishag and their daughter.<\/p>\n
Mustafa said that despite the relative improvement in Ishag’s conditions, “a prison is a prison.”<\/p>\n
Last week, European Union leaders called for revocation of the “inhumane verdict,” while US Secretary of State John Kerry urged Khartoum to repeal its laws banning Muslims from converting.<\/p>\n
British Prime Minister David Cameron said the way she has been treated “is barbaric and has no place in today’s world.”<\/p>\n
Mustafa and four other human rights lawyers handling her case for free have appealed the verdict.<\/p>\n
“We’re still waiting,” and there is no word on when the higher court’s decision may come, Mustafa said.<\/p>\n
{{ ‘Never a Muslim’ }} <\/p>\n
A church source was optimistic Ishag would be freed because of international pressure on Sudan.<\/p>\n
“I am hopeful that she will be released,” said the source, asking for anonymity.<\/p>\n
But Muslim extremist groups have been lobbying the Islamist government over Ishag’s case, prominent newspaper editor Khalid Tigani has said.<\/p>\n
Ishag, born in eastern Sudan’s Gedaref state on November 3, 1987, is the daughter of a Sudanese Muslim father and an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian mother, a statement obtained by media on Tuesday from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Khartoum says.<\/p>\n
Her father abandoned the family when Ishag was five, and she was raised according to her mother’s faith, it says.<\/p>\n
“She has never been a Muslim in her life,” said the statement signed by Father Mussa Timothy Kacho, episcopal vicar for Khartoum.<\/p>\n
Ishag joined the Catholic church shortly before she married the Khartoum-born Wani in December 2011, the vicar said.<\/p>\n
Wani is a United States citizen, the US embassy confirmed to AFP on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The case against Ishag dates from 2013 when “a group of men who claim to be Meriam’s relatives” filed an initial legal action, the vicar’s statement said. <\/p>\n
In fact, she had never seen those men before, the statement added, in comments confirmed by the lawyer Mustafa.<\/p>\n
Ishag and her husband own a barber shop, a mini-mart and an agricultural project in Gedaref, the vicar said.<\/p>\n
Mustafa did not know if there is a link between the businesses and the case against Ishag but he said: “Surely there is something behind this”.<\/p>\n
The Ishag case is the latest problem facing Sudan, an impoverished nation battling rebellions in its west and south, while more than six million people need humanitarian aid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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