A Sudanese woman who was sentenced
to death for marrying a Christian was freed from jail Monday after her
conviction was overturned, her lawyer told NBC News. Meriam Ibrahim was
pregnant when she was put on death row in May
and she reportedly had her child behind bars. The court said because
she was raised by her Muslim father her marriage to a Christian man
amounted to apostasy — the crime of abandoning or criticizing Islam. The
court also sentenced her to 100 lashes for adultery.
But her lawyer Elshareef
Ali Mohammed said Monday that an appeal court had overturned the
decision after it recognized that Sudan’s constitution allows religious
freedom of expression. She was now at home with her husband and young
son. "She is very happy," the lawyer said via telephone from the capital
Khartoum just after 6 p.m. local time, an hour after Ibrahim was
released. "At first she did not believe the news that she was to be
released but she was very surprised in the end."
Ibrahim's conviction was met by widespread international outcry,
including appeals by Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, tens of thousands
of tweets, and several online petitions, one of which reached almost one
million digital signatures.
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