By Robert Knight
Tuesday, June 03, 2014
The world is full of cruelty, but something unfolding in
Sudan should interest even jaded observers.
If a million deaths are a statistic, while a single death
is a tragedy, this case puts a human face on the genocide of Christians by
militant Muslims all over the world. God willing, this story might still have a
happy ending if the U.S. government takes it seriously.
Dr. Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishig, a pregnant Christian woman,
was sentenced on May 11 by a Sudanese government Shariah law court to 100
lashes and then to be hanged. Her crimes? Apostasy, for being a Christian, and
“adultery” for marrying a Christian man. Meriam’s Muslim father left her family
when she was young, and her Christian mother raised her. By Shariah law,
children must follow their father’s religion, even if he’s a deadbeat dad or
worse. Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslims, while Muslim men can.
The court allowed Dr. Ishig to give birth to a daughter on
May 16 in a prison clinic. But her death and lashing sentences remain. There
have been conflicting reports in Sudan about a possibly imminent release, and
whether it would be only to nurse her child for a time – and then be hanged.
We pause here to listen for outrage from American
feminists. What’s that? Poor Sandra Fluke might have to pay for her own birth
control pills? Now there’s a “war on women” the feminists can get behind. Okay,
let’s move on.
Dr. Ishig, 27, had been chained to the floor for months
during her pregnancy and while caring for her toddler son in a Sudanese prison
“that a 2008 U.N. document reported as having an infant mortality rate of one
per day in the summer,” according to a petition to the White House asking for
her release.
Here’s a fact left out of a May 15 New York Times article
about the case: Dr. Ishig’s husband, Daniel Wani, is an American who lives in
New Hampshire. If humanitarianism is not enough to get the Obama
Administration’s attention, then surely the fact that Mrs. Ibrahim is married
to an American citizen should. New Hampshire’s two U.S. senators have asked for
the State Department to intercede, and Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) has introduced
H. Res. 601, calling for her release and granting of refugee status.
Since President Obama famously told us that America is no
more exceptional than any other country, thus placing all nations on the same
moral plain, U.S. diplomats might be reluctant to make a big push here out for
fear of appearing culturally judgmental. But dispatching diplomats to secure
Dr. Ishig’s release is a far milder intrusion into another nation’s domestic
affairs than, say, Mr. Obama’s bombing Libya without congressional approval,
egging on Muslim rebels that brought down Egypt’s Mubarak regime or aiding
rebels trying to overthrow Syria’s government.
When Dr. Ishig was convicted of apostasy and given four
days to repent or face the ultimate penalty, she declined to denounce her faith
in her savior Jesus Christ. Hence, the flailing and death sentence under a
legal code birthed by the “religion of peace.”
Also in the news, Muslims in the Central African Republic
stormed a Catholic church in the capital city of Bangui last Wednesday and
massacred at least 30 people. A Washington Times article notes that “members of
the Seleka rebel coalition looted, raped and killed Christians upon seizing
control of Bangui last year.”
In Nigeria, the Muslim group Boko Haram has become famous
for kidnapping 275 schoolgirls and threatening to sell them as slaves,
garnering a Tweet from First Lady Michelle Obama asking them to “#Bring Back
Our Girls.” President Obama has since dispatched advisors to Nigeria to assist
in the search for the kidnapped children. Over the last two years, Boko Haram,
which means, “Western education is evil,” has burned churches and schools and
raped, tortured and killed thousands of Christians and moderate Muslims,
earning them mention in news articles decrying “sectarian” violence.
In Iran, pastor Saeed Abedini, 33, an Idaho resident, is
serving eight years in prison for the crime of encouraging apostasy – trying to
convert Muslims to Christianity. He had been hauled off a bus and imprisoned
for months before being tried and convicted in January 2013. His wife Naghmeh
and their two children still reside in Idaho. She has been to Washington and to
the United Nations, lobbying for his release.
Hospitalized recently for “treatment of life-threatening
injuries, including internal bleeding sustained from frequent beatings by
prison guards,” according to Fox News, Mr. Abedini managed on April 20 to get
out an Easter message, which read in part:
“Jesus said to His Disciples: ‘Whoever wants to be my
disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’. (Matthew
16:24)” The courageous Mr. Abedini is bearing a cross that few would want to
carry.
In Iraq, over the last decade, about one million of that
war-scarred nation’s 1.5 million Christians have fled to other countries. Some
of them settled in Syria, where they have become targets of al-Qaeda-allied
rebel factions.
Open Doors, which documents religious persecution,
reports that 14 of the 15 most oppressive countries persecuting Christians are
Muslim majority nations, with former basketball star Dennis Rodman’s favorite
country, communist North Korea, filling out the list.
As Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor noted in an April
17 Wall Street Journal column, his tiny nation is the only one in the Middle
East with a growing native Christian population.
As Christians are massacred daily across the world by
Muslim terrorists, we have heard very little from a White House that hectors us
almost daily about “tolerance.”
Let’s conclude with a story from Afghanistan. In 2009, a
21-year-old Afghan woman was raped by a male relative. Under Shariah law, she
was jailed for “forced adultery” and sentenced to two years in prison, during
which she gave birth to a daughter. She appealed, and the court extended her
sentence to 12 years unless she married her attacker. After an international
outcry, she was released in December 2011.
“Honor killings” of young women by their families even in
Western nations like Great Britain and Canada for crimes such as having the
wrong boyfriend or converting to Christianity pop up in the media, but the
press moves on quickly.
It’s up to the rest of us to make sure that people like
Dr. Meriam Ishig, pastor Saaed Abedini and the growing list of victims are not
forgotten and that many prayers are lifted on their behalf.
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