Save Meriam

In case you haven’t already heard, it turns out that barbarism very much exists in the year 2014. Many people, myself included, will often try to convince ourselves that we exist in a sleek chrome sort of place where we giggle at youtubers, slurp frappalappachinos and worry about deadlines. Unfortunately, time and time again this palatable fabrication is ripped away from beneath us as if by a poorly trained waiter. Everything we had propped up to comfort ourselves comes crashing down and we see a stark reality. A woman has been sentenced to death for apostasy.

The victim in question is called Meriam. She is a Somalian who upon marrying a Christian man and converting from Islam has been charged with adultery. She was sentenced in Khartoum and will be put to death by hanging in two years. Don’t jump to conclusions though. It turns out that the judge is a fairly progressive man. Not only did he give the woman the chance to recant, which she flatly refused, but he even postponed the sentence for two years to allow her to give birth. Progressive, that would be, if we were living in the sixteenth century.

Perhaps the most dispiriting aspect of the case would be that she refused to recant. If someone who changes their faith refuses to deny their new belief under the threat of death, you would almost expect a depraved zealot to respect that conviction. A judge issuing such a verdict either can’t recognize blatant martyrdom or chooses to ignore it because it isn’t in the name of the required deity. I would suggest that he did recognize this and purposefully chose to convict her of adultery instead of apostasy, in a disgusting attempt to sully this brave woman’s name.

I call on the British government to demand that Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag be freed