THE joy of Meriam Yahya Ibrahim, the Sudanese Christian woman who was sentenced to death for her faith, turned out to be short lived. She has reportedly been rearrested after release from prison.
A day after the news of her freedom from prison was flashed across the media, the Sudanese Christian woman was rearrested, according to reports. It’s not the first time that Ibrahim was taken back into custody after release.
According to a report in CNN, Ibrahim was rearrested at the airport following her release from Omdurman women’s prison on Monday after attempting to leave Sudan on Tuesday.
Ibrahim was at the airport in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, with her husband, Daniel Wani, who is an American citizen, and her two children, one of whom was born during her stay in prison. Wani told CNN that they were detained and interrogated at Khartoum’s national security headquarters.
The Telegraph reported that the family were detained because of documentation issues, and that the United States Embassy is trying to solve the problem. The family were trying to travel to South Sudan as their U.S. paperwork is not yet ready. Wani’s plea to the U.S. government to grant Ibrahim a visa and their children citizenship, is backed by two senators from New Hampshire, where Wani lives.
The rearrest also comes after a man claiming to be Ibrahim’s brother, who initially filed a complaint against his Christian-raised sister, recently made comments saying that he was seeking retribution, The Wire reported. Al Samani Al Hadi, her brother, said that Ibrahim should be executed for refusing to renounce Christianity. Ibrahim was arrested in May and sentenced to death, in addition to being convicted of adultery and sentenced to 100 lashes, for being a Christian in Islamic Sudan.
