Pregnant Sudanese woman sentenced to death for refusing to renounce her Christian faith

Parent Cafe
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<p>I also wish Brandeis had kept their commitment to her and I’d also like to see a statement of outrage on behalf of those who complained, because- even though they are not personally responsible for this, this reflects poorly on what they hold to be good. The world is watching and a woman’s life is in peril.</p>

<p>I’d also like to see a statement of outrage from every corner and every religion on earth because we are all part of humanity,and the good in all of us. Her senseless murder would diminish every single one of us. The life of a pregnant mother is on the line, and so is our sensibility if we just stand by and watch it happen. </p>

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<p>Since Sudan is already a pariah of the world community due to its appalling human rights record, leaders concerned about being tried by the Hague for war crimes, conflicts with the UN/World Community over the Sudan Civil War and war crimes like Darfur, and its long history of military dictatorships and imposition of strict Shariah law, Sudan doesn’t care very much about or for the UN and World Community.</p>

<p>Did I mention its behavior in relation to their geographic neighbors means it is not very popular with many of its neighboring countries as well?</p>

<p>Also, the vast majority of nations that supply arms and aid are those who have similarly horrid human rights records and/or nations who don’t care. </p>

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<p>I don’t think their complaints were solely about her comments on Islam. Their issues with her also are due to her links with a number of radical right-wing* Dutch politicians like:</p>

<p><a href=“Geert Wilders - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Wilders&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Although he doesn’t like to be linked with radical right-wing European politicians like Austria’s Jorg Haider or France’s Jean-Marie Le Pen, his expressed views and actions have caused him to be perceived and linked as such by many Dutch citizens and those in Europe and around the world who don’t sympathize with their views on topics ranging from immigration to mandatory cultural assimilation. </p>

<p>He also garnered much controversy for advocating policies which many Dutch view as civil liberties violations such as preemptive detentions. </p>

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<li>Especially for post-WWII Europe.</li>
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<p>I do not blame the US president what is being done; never said that. No way to stop people who will commit such acts. However, I do blame him for not speaking up for the US and thereby displaying weakness. </p>

<p>Interesting he has time to immediately comment on 1) Michael Sam, 2) concussions in football and 3) his NCAA brackets, but not a peep in support of this woman. </p>

<p>To me, that is a bizarre set of priorities on which to use presidential time and power, as opposed to an openly visible assault on a woman on the international stage. (The free speech and religious freedom are not part of it be cause that is a political difference between the two countries). However, the treatment of the woman is just inhumane. If the US does not speak up, who will?</p>

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<p>It’s easy to speak up on popular cultural ideas and events, like Michael Sam. To speak out against this woman isn’t as easy. It could possibly infringe on protecting Muslims from discrimination. Sometimes I wonder if we, as a nation, are so polarized by our political ideals that we are blinded by them. </p>

<p>We should not discriminate by religion, but now we are talking about actions. We don’t have to be critical of all of Islam, but can we be critical of the actions of this particular group? I hope so, and I hope our leaders will say something. </p>

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<p>There are so many atrocities going on in the world that the president would never get anything done if he were required to address each. This case isn’t even the most egregious. You can pick a good million human rights issues on any day in North Korea. </p>

<p>Asking the president to speak out would be abdicating our responsibilities to address human rights. More importantly, it would inject politics into the matter and immediately lead to accusations of US hypocrisy. Why not speak out on treatment of women living in the Middle East in our allied countries. As for weakness? Is he going to threaten military action whenever he doesn’t get his way? If he doesn’t back his threats with military action then “shut up”. Words as a show of strength is classic politics; doing nothing but fooling people into believing that you are doing something. </p>

<p>From my perspective, religion is the problem! Most of the world’s monotheistic religions have books of worship containing despicable treatments of women, slaves and children. IMO, I would prefer the president denounce all religions. But we know he won’t do that.</p>

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<p>One of the possible issues he’s possibly weighing other than the fact this news broke within the last few days is not providing a regime which has already shown it doesn’t give much of a fig about human rights, the UN, or the world community ammunition to garner more popularity among their domestic supporters by portraying Western and especially US outrage about this as another manifestation of Western cultural imperialism and neo-colonialism. Especially considering the history that Sudan was effectively a British colony until 1956. </p>

<p>Something which other similar regimes like Khomeini’s Iran and his successors or North Korea have used with some success to distract their people from domestic problems and to redirect any outrage away from themselves, complicate regional geopolitics, and to paint Western nations and human rights activists as agents of Western neo-colonialism to their domestic audience…however wrongful it may be. </p>

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<p>Similarly, the US embargo against Cuba may have made it easier for the Castro government to stay in power.</p>

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<p>“Asking the president to speak out would be abdicating our responsibilities to address human rights. More importantly, it would inject politics into the matter and immediately lead to accusations of US hypocrisy. Why not speak out on treatment of women living in the Middle East in our allied countries.”</p>

<p>That’s kind of odd. Yeah, why are our leaders not speaking up loudly on the treatment of women living in the Middle East? Why not? It’s horrendous. Why keep silent on these things? And when something egregious, like this woman’s plight, is made very public…why not speak up? You can give all the excuses in the world, but it’s purely just weak. Of course her situation is not the US’s fault in any way, but why not use powerful platforms to speak loudly against such abusive treatment, particularly those sanctioned by a government.</p>

<p>I wonder if in this case, the president is not speaking up against a Christian woman sentenced to death because she will not convert to Islam, and by Islamic law since her father was Muslim, she has to be a Muslim. Sound familiar? Oh, maybe it would point to the similarities of an American president whose father is a Muslim, yet he is a Christian, so…</p>

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<p>@busdriver11, unless Obama is willing to put the US military on the ground in Sudan to enforce the outcome, words are meaningless. I would prefer that the president speaks out against the war on women occurring within the US and pass laws to protect their reproductive rights. But there seems to be silence on that initiative from those chiding Obama for not speaking on this pregnant Sudanese case. It is so much easier to blame the president than to try to do something ourselves. Politics and religion, both causing problems again. So, are you willing to have the US military enforce those words you want the president to say?</p>

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<p>No one ever said the President should address everything. The key word everyone has used is “priorities.” We question his priorities in how he has used presidential capital to address issues.</p>

<p>Setting priorities is the key to any strong leadership, and they set the tone to what the leader views as important. </p>

<p>I notice my examples were never addressed directly. I ask simply - as the supposed leader of the free world, which topic below addresses the issue of humane treatment of people in general and could benefit from 15 minutes of presidential time and energy to highlight a serious plight?</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Michael Sam being drafted (got a phone call from president)</p></li>
<li><p>Football concussions (holding a symposium on this next week at White House)</p></li>
<li><p>NCAA (all major network watched president fill out his brackets)</p></li>
<li><p>Female about to be executed because she refuses give up her Christian beliefs (crickets chirping)</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Each person can determine in his own heart, which one is really important and defining to humanity - 1, 2, 3, or 4.</p>

<p>And, it is interesting that an argument used is the US cannot address everything on the world stage. Technically, true, of course. However, three and two months ago the president and US found time for these public actions on the world stage:</p>

<p>1) to publicly chastise Uganda for outlawing homosexuality and to warn the US is reviewing the withholding of $400M in foreign aid to Uganda if it does not reverse those laws. This is an actual religious belief of the Ugandan government and people.</p>

<p>2) to also publicly question Kenya’s stance on against homosexuality and said this strained diplomatic relationships. This is an actual religious belief of the Kenyan government and people.</p>

<p>So let’s see - US and presidential power has been used publicly in the last three months to address other issues on the world stage, but finds no time or need to publicly address a female about to be executed for holding to her Christian religious beliefs. </p>

<p>But, there is consistency in one regard, i.e., showing little respect for people holding and following their religious beliefs, except if Muslim. Then it is OK to kill a female for being Christian, no questions asked, no punishment threatened, and no lectures about tolerance.</p>

<p>There are clearly people who get this twisted, sorted logic, but I find this quite sad for the US to be lead like this. Where is Ronald “…Tear down this wall” Reagan when you need a real leader to stand up for basic human life? Well, he is obviously not in this White House.</p>

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<p>@frugaldoctor wrote:</p>

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<p>Apples and oranges and it is the comparing of extremes. </p>

<p>We have no formal diplomatic ties or relationships with North Korea. We give them no foreign aid, except food aid. Therefore, there is no way to even influence it if we wanted to. In fact, even China has little influence on North Korea. It is an isolated, insular nation.</p>

<p>The US has had formal diplomatic ties with Sudan for decades, and we give it tons of foreign aid (check that - we give them our tax dollars). And yet, people say we are powerless to do anything without troops. Hum… how about beginning with the approach that was so quickly and easily tried with Uganda and Kenya? (see my previous post directly above)</p>

<p>Excuses are not going to hide the fact that weakness is abound on this particular issue.</p>

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<p>I think it’s aligning with his political party. As I said before, we are so polarized now that we are blinded by them. </p>

<p>So let’s strip it of political undertones, and what we have here is:</p>

<p>A pregnant mother is sentenced to whippings and death and thrown into an unsanitary prison with her 20 month old child. She has not committed a major crime such as murder. The child is innocent. </p>

<p>Seems tragic and inhumane regardless.</p>

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<p>^^ Agreed. </p>

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<p>This is an interesting commentary-
<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/16/opinion/sudan-marrying-for-love/”>Why marrying for love should never mean death - CNN;

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<p>Weakness is in the eye of the politically-motivated beholder. I vehemently disagree that this displays “weakness” of any sort. In fact, I personally take an even dimmer view of Islam than I do of most other religions, largely because of the treatment of women. (And part of this is, of course, because of regional customs such as genital mutilation.) I will refrain from explaining that statement further in the interests of not pushing the thread further in the direction of religion, something that we have EXPRESSLY BEEN ASKED NOT TO DO. (Did you miss that?) </p>

<p>There are infinite numbers of things that play into the situations you describe: most of them involve US CITIZENS and events within the US, the other two things involve newly-adopted civil laws against entire segments of the population, you have absolutely no idea what pressure the State Department may be bringing to bear behind the scenes, and, most obviously, there is no one single response that suits all situations. </p>

<p>The fact is that Ronald Reagan dealt a huge blow to the welfare of all women in developing countries when he signed the presidential order stripping funding from any organization that provided abortion services worldwide, no matter what else it did. I am willing to bet that millions of women have suffered and died as a result of this, yet you are all worked up about ONE woman. Why? As to alligning with his political party…it is hard to say anything that is not against the TOS, but let me say that it is very, very clear which political party is concerned about the welfare of women. And it is his.</p>

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<p>@Consolation, thanks for your voice of reason. I find it abhorrent how people pick and choose their mantra based on religious and political alignments. Individual freedom should be for everyone regardless of whether they are white, black, LGBTQIA, women, men, atheist, theists, etc. </p>

<p>I don’t think pointing out Michael Sam was an accident. It’s “modern homophobia” described best on <a href=“http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/05/15/fox-news-michael-sam-and-appropriate-homophobia/199319”>http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/05/15/fox-news-michael-sam-and-appropriate-homophobia/199319&lt;/a&gt;. Do I care about this Sudanese woman? Absolutely and so many others in this world. I care so much that I want to do all in my power to stop the move, within our own country, to take women’s reproductive freedoms away. Taking one freedom away is just a start and might not end there. What’s next? Denying services to homosexuals? Before we start defending freedom overseas start doing a sincere job at home. </p>

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<p>So, I’m not too sure what a woman being murdered by religious extremists overseas has to do with the availability of abortion in the US which isn’t going anywhere, anyway. Yes, there are anti-abortion voices in our country, always have been. Plenty are not the religious right and roughly half of them are women. Most of the US abortion issue is about funding not rights. And, this has been going on for virtually my entire life and nothing substantial has changed so I’m not terribly worried.</p>

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<p>The (very substantial) US aid to Sudan is designed to advance US strategic and security interests. If it was withdrawn some individuals in Sudan would suffer (and die), some Sudanese officials would lose some of what they can skim off as profits, and some US interests would be harmed. </p>

<p>I doubt if the Sudanese government has full authority or control over every religious court. It would be chaos if the US could be played like a puppet into changing its foreign assistance policy by the actions of any minor official.</p>

<p>I think this thread is already too political, with personal swipes about the religion of President Obama already made.</p>

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<p>“unless Obama is willing to put the US military on the ground in Sudan to enforce the outcome, words are meaningless. I would prefer that the president speaks out against the war on women occurring within the US and pass laws to protect their reproductive rights. But there seems to be silence on that initiative from those chiding Obama for not speaking on this pregnant Sudanese case. It is so much easier to blame the president than to try to do something ourselves. Politics and religion, both causing problems again. So, are you willing to have the US military enforce those words you want the president to say?”</p>

<p>@frugaldoctor, I didn’t say that. If we sent the military to enforce our condemnation of abuse of women, we’d be sending troops into every country in the Middle East except for Israel, and some in Africa. I think we should withhold foreign assistance and trade to countries who have these policies. And make it clear why. This, unfortunately, is not an anomaly. I don’t blame this on our president at all, but it wouldn’t kill him to speak up. I think our president has spoken up endlessly on the “War on Women”, but of course that’s pretty much all political bluster and a great catchphrase. Kind of weird to even talk about those two issues in the same paragraph.</p>

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<p>Women’s reproductive rights have strong ties to religion. We have religious extremists within our own country who would love to chip away at those reproductive rights. In fact, these extremists have orchestrated violence against abortion doctors in the past. IMO, the religious extremists who have sentenced Meriam Yehya Ibrahim to death serve as an example of why we need to stop religion from impeding our freedoms in the US.</p>

<p>By the way, several countries make apostasy illegal and punishable by death: <a href=“Apostasy - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>So why did the outrage wait so long?</p>