Police blocked Wani from entering the courtroom on
Thursday, Elnabi said. Lawyers appealed to the judge,
but he refused, Elnabi said.
Wani uses a wheelchair and "totally depends on her
for all details of his life," Elnabi said.
"He cannot live without her," said the lawyer.
The couple's son is having a difficult time in prison.
"He is very affected from being trapped inside a prison from such a young age," Elnabi said. "He is always getting sick due to lack of hygiene and bugs."
Ibrahim is having a difficult pregnancy, the lawyer
said. A request to send her to a private hospital was
denied "due to security measures."
There also is the question of the timing of a potential
execution.
In past cases involving pregnant or nursing women,
the Sudanese government waited until the mother
weaned her child before executing any sentence, said
Christian Solidarity Worldwide spokeswoman Kiri
Kankhwende.
Rights groups, governments ask for compassion
Amnesty International describes Ibrahim as a prisoner
of conscience.
"The fact that a woman could be sentenced to death
for her religious choice, and to flogging for being
married to a man of an allegedly different religion, is
abhorrent and should never be even considered,"
Manar Idriss, Amnesty International's Sudan researcher, said in a statement.
"'Adultery' and 'apostasy' are acts which should not be
considered crimes at all, let alone meet the international standard of 'most serious crimes' in relation to
the death penalty. It is a flagrant breach of international human rights law," the researcher said.
Katherine Perks with the African Centre for Justice
and Peace Studies said the verdict goes against Sudan's "own Constitution and commitments made under regional and international law."
"Meriam has been convicted solely on account of her
religious convictions and personal status," she said.
Sudan is one of the most difficult countries
in the world to be a Christian, according to
international religious freedom monitors.
"Conversion from Islam is a crime punishable by death, suspected converts to Christianity face societal pressures, and government security personnel intimidate and
sometimes torture those suspected of conversion," said the commission, whose members are appointed by Congress and the president.
The Sudanese government has arrested
Christians for spreading their faith, razed
Christian churches and confiscated Christians' property, the commission said.
Since 1999, the U.S. State Department has
called Sudan one of the worst offenders of
religious rights, counting it among eight
"countries of particular concern."
"The government at times enforced laws
against blasphemy and defaming Islam," the
State Department said in its most recent report on religious freedom, from 2012.
The State Department's other countries of
concern, all of which impose strict penalties
on Christians or other faiths are: Myanmar
(also known as Burma), China, Eritrea, Iran,
North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan.
Among all religious groups, Christians are
the most likely to be persecuted worldwide,
according to a 2014 report by the Pew Research Center.
Between June 2006 and December 2012,
Christians were harassed by governments in
151 countries, Pew reported. Islam was second, with 135 countries. Together, Christians and Muslims make up half of the
world's population, Pew noted.
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