Sudanese Christian Meriam Ibrahim speaks of her prison ordeal for the first time

Meriam Ibrahim and her husband

The Sudanese mother who was sentenced to hang for refusing to give up her Christian faith has spoken about her ordeal for the first time, saying she never once considered giving in and that she made her stand on behalf of all those facing persecution around the world because of their religious beliefs.

Nearly two months after finally being allowed to flee her native country and taking refuge in the United States, Meriam Yahya Ibrahim, 27, said she had been subjected to intense daily pressure while in prison to accept conversion to Islam but that she consistently refused to give in to her captors’ demands.

Ms Ibrahim, a Christian, revealed that following her arrest on charges of apostasy last year – abandoning Islam – she had been given three days by the authorities in Khartoum to succumb and reconvert and that she had refused.

Pregnant at the time of her sentencing, she was refused access to proper medical care for the baby’s birth. “I was supposed to give birth at a hospital outside of prison but they denied that request as well,” she said.

“When it was time to give birth, they refused to remove the chains from my ankles. So I had to give birth with chains on my ankles.”

Meanwhile, the attempts to force her to convert were relentless, she revealed. “While I was in prison, some people came to visit me from the Muslim Scholars Association,” she said. “These were imams that created an intervention by reciting parts of the Koran for me. I faced a tremendous amount of pressure.”

Under Sudan’s strict Islamic penal code women are forbidden from switching faiths. It also states that a woman’s faith is determined by that of their father.

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Source: The Independent, Sept. 16, 2014