UK Summons Sudanese Diplomat over Apostasy Sentence, U.N. Says Order is 'Outrageous'

Britain summoned the Sudanese charge d'affaires on Monday in protest at a death sentence handed to a heavily pregnant Christian woman for apostasy.

The political director of the Foreign Office, Simon Gass, pressed diplomat Bukhari Afandi to urge his government to do everything in its power to have the decision overturned.

London has already condemned the sentencing of 27-year-old Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag on Thursday as "barbaric", while the United States also said it was left "deeply disturbed".

At the request of Foreign Secretary William Hague, Gass "expressed deep concern at the recent decision to sentence Meriam to death for apostasy", a spokesman said.

He "asked the charge to urge his government to uphold its international obligations on freedom of religion or belief, and to do all it can to get this decision overturned".

Meanwhile, U.N. rights experts voiced outrage at the Sudanese court order.

"This outrageous conviction must be overturned and Ms. Ibrahim must be immediately released," insisted the U.N. experts on a range of issues, including on the human rights situation in Sudan, violence against women, minorities and the freedom of religion or belief.

They stressed in a statement that under international law, "the death penalty may only be imposed for the most serious crimes, if at all."

"Choosing and/or changing one's religion is not a crime at all. On the contrary, it is a basic human right," they said.

The U.N. experts said that the right to marry and found a family was a fundamental human right, and voiced particular concern that the heavily pregnant Ishag was being held with her 20-month-old son in "harsh conditions" at the Omdurman’s Women Prison near Khartoum.

"The imposition and enforcement of the death penalty on pregnant women or recent mothers is inherently cruel and leads to a violation of the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," they warned.

They called on Sudan to repeal all discriminatory laws, adding there was a "pressing need to address the pattern of discrimination, abuse and torture as well as the subjugation and denigration of women in the country."

The young mother was found guilty of apostasy, or publicly renouncing Islam -- a faith she never professed -- and sentenced to hang after she refused to "return" to the Muslim religion.

Ishag, who was born to a Christian mother and Muslim father, was also sentenced to 100 lashes for "adultery", for living with the Christian man she has been married to since 2012.

Under Sudan's interpretation of sharia, a Muslim woman cannot marry a non-Muslim man and any such relationship is regarded as adulterous.

She was convicted under the Islamic sharia law that has been in force in Sudan since 1983 and outlaws conversions of faith on pain of death.

Other than floggings, however, extreme sharia law punishments have been rare in Sudan.

Picture source: BBC