Meriam Ibrahim has spoken for the
first time of her imprisonment and death sentence. 27-year-old Ibrahim was
sentenced to 100 lashes and death by hanging on May 11. Though she was bought
up as a Christian, the mother-of-two was found guilty of converting from Islam
and was also accused of adultery after marrying a Christian man – a union
deemed invalid under Sharia law.
She says her daughter, Maya, who
she gave birth to while shackled in prison, may have suffered a disability as a
result.
"I couldn't open my legs so
the women had to lift me off the table. I wasn't lying on the table," she
told CNN.
"Something has happened to
the baby...I don't know in the future whether she'll need support to walk or
not."
Of her original death sentence,
Ibrahim said: "I was only thinking about my children and how I was going
to give birth. I was really scared of giving birth in prison".
Now having been freed, but still
shrouded in controversy, Ibrahim admitted that she is "really
miserable".
"I left prison to bring
together my children and settle down...and now there are protests against me in
the streets," she said, before sharing of the terror of being detained by
officials once again at the airport. Ibrahim and her family are accused of
using fraudulent emergency South Sudanese exit papers.
"We were scared and
wondering what was wrong. They locked us in that room for four to five hours
and the whole time we were trying to figure out what the problem was."It's my right to use the
papers and have a South Sudanese passport because my husband is a South
Sudanese citizen. He has an American passport and South Sudanese passport. I
never forged any papers. I was given the papers by the South Sudanese embassy
because I deserve it,"she said.
Ibrahim also told CNN about her
traumatic experiences in prison, where she was reportedly visited by an Islamic
scholar who read to her continuously from the Qur'an in an attempt to help her
"return" to the Muslim faith. Despite this ordeal, however, she
remains steadfast in her beliefs.
"I've always been Christian.
I couldn't have been Muslim and not go back, with all the things they said and
the way they treat me – with a different sheikh coming to speak to me every
other time and women in prison saying all sorts of things like 'don't eat the
nonbeliever's food' and calling me a Christian," she insisted.
"There was all this talk and
taunts. Even the officers in the prison would join in."
As of yet it remains unclear what
Ibrahim's next move will be."I can't even decide what I should do right
now. I want to travel but at the same time I don't want to travel," she
said.
"But the state I'm in right
now means that I'm forced to. There's a new problem every day about me
leaving."
Ibrahim is facing the possibility
of a retrial, reports confirm. She is currently staying at the US embassy in
Khartoum for her own 'safety' after being forbidden from leaving Sudan, but it
was hoped she would soon be granted the right to exit. Her lawyer Shareif Ali
Shareif, however, has now indicated that she may now face an entirely new trial
in the Sudanese courts.
Ibrahim's half-brother, a strict
Muslim who has claimed he would execute Ibrahim given the chance, is said to be
furious that she has been released and is now attempting use Sharia law to
claim legal authority over her.
"Her brother [Al Samani Al
Hadi] has launched a new petition to the family court to prove that Meriam is
his sister...This would give him a legal right over her," Shareif told the
MailOnline.
"But he does not have the
authority to demand this right – it is only a father or a mother that can
demand this legal status. He is doing this to prevent Meriam from travelling
outside of Sudan.
"Meriam has not been
officially informed of this latest move," Shareif continued. "She has
not been interviewed and has not appeared in court. We are aware of the new
legal process but we have not received any documents as yet."
A global campaign for her freedom
led to Ibrahim's release on June 23, but she was later arrested at Khartoum
airport while trying to fly to the US.
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