Mother on death row in Sudanese jail.

This does look like good news! www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/meriam-ibrahim-sudanese-woman-sentenced-to-hang-will-be-freed-in-a-few-days-9466994.html

Yes Lilygran I heard this on the news late last night. It just goes to prove that the right pressure, in the right place, by the right people can work.

In the Sunday Times an imam from Oxford ,director of the Muslim Educational Centre has stated that there are no grounds for this in the Koran .he calls Sharia a manufactured legal corpus which contradicts the primary divine scriptures .

Just as there are no grounds in the New Testament for some of the excesses of Christian zealotry, in the Inquisition, say, or the burning of "witches".

Perhaps Islamic fundamentalists who follow the post-Mohammed laws will become as rare one day as witch-burners. Lets hope so.

News not so good now www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/sudan/10869421/Sudan-apostasy-Meriam-Ibrahims-lawyers-take-case-to-international-commission.html

I hope the interest, and disapproval, shown by the Western world has n't back-fired and made them dig their heels in. Let's hope and pray that the African Commission for Human Rights overrule them. And that they listen.

Was it not that pillar of the Anglican church, Ms A Widdecombe MP who presided over a prison regime where women were allowed out of clink to give birth - shackled to their hospital bed?
Was it not that beloved of the Roman Catholic popes (There are other popes) Generalissimo Franco who instituted garotting of women who had even attempted to gain terminations of a pregnancy brought about by such trivialities as rape ?
Was not the late, great Jim'll Fix It, much praised and honoured by 'mother church' ? - Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_St._Gregory_the_Great
And as for Alan Turing who allegedly shortened W W 2 by about 2 years .....
Judge not, lest ye be judged. For with the judgement that ye judge, ye shall be judged. And ye will not like it, not one little bit.

AAAHappyManI fail to see how this contributes in any way to the consideration of this outrageous contravention of human rights. Why drag Alan Turing into the mix?

AAA is talking about outrageous contraventions of human rights too. Ones that purportedly happened here not so long ago. I think the point is that "the mighty" in places like Sudan, where inhuman laws are still used, can throw such instances back at us when we criticise them. That doesn't mean that our criticisms are not justified but it is pertinent to the discussion.

... from a certain point of view.

And it's a commonly used arguing tactic that AAA is using.

But we are free to publicly criticise the things that AAA mentioned, and to work to change flaws in our society. That is the difference.

thatbags Wed 04-Jun-14
+....AAA is talking about outrageous contraventions of human rights too.
Thank you.
+....Ones that purportedly
[purportedly = supposedly, putatively or reputedly (WikiP) ]
You mean there are doubts that these things happened?
+.... I think the point is that "the mighty" in places like Sudan, .... can throw such instances back at us when we criticise them.
Whilst that is a valid point, I'm not concerned with their opinion, I'm concerned with the Machiavellian / Animal Farm, ploy of deflecting concern with severe problems in one's own society by pointing at wrongs under other regimes.
+....That doesn't mean that our criticisms are not justified but it is pertinent to the discussion.
I agree.................. I agree.

thatbags Wed 04-Jun-14 07:17:26
And it's a commonly used arguing tactic that AAA is using.
Please enlighten me on how this is a 'tactic' rather than a plain statement of the facts and a call for some element of introspection.

annodomini Tue 03-Jun-14 23:27:16
AAAHappyMan..... Why drag Alan Turing into the mix?
I was pointing to the treatment, in both senses of the word, of A T, and hundreds more - fuelled by the Xtian fear and loathing of their own sexual feelings. Even now Xtians in UK are kicking lumps out of each other about whether women are fully huMAN, or not. As recently reported on that organ of right wing propaganda, BBC's Woman's Hour, some xtian women priests are being so abused by their male counterparts that they have been driven to the verge of suicide. And some have committed that mortal sin. Where's Free speech there?

So are you recommending that we ignore (and thus collude with) the shackling and possible death of a woman, because not everything in our society is or has been perfect?

"Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but don't consider the beam that is in your own eye?" We should wash out our own eye, yes of course, but we do have two of them, and we can see with the other that it is barbaric that she should be treatyed so.

AAA I have said before on this and other threads to the point of tedium that concentrating on the element of religion in this and other stories, distracts us from the main issue. Equally distracting is to refer to evil acts done by a different set of people. We are each responsible and answerable for our own actions. Failing to denounce injustice is also wrong.

I don't think anyone is " deflecting concern with severe problems in one's own society by pointing at wrongs under other regimes" as you suggest. We are showing our extreme concern for a woman in horrible circumstances through no fault of her own. What can be wrong with that?

(I do find your posts a bit hard to decipher with all that light and dark stuff going on)

(And I don't think you make a very sensible point either)

That was to AAAHappyman btw (who sounds anything but happy)

I used 'purporting' because I have no immediate and direct evidence of what you referred to AAA (e.g. women being shackled to childbirth beds) without a laborious checking of the details. That is not saying your assertions were mistaken, nor is it saying that I don't agree that such things happened, only that I know nothing about it.

Similarly, I used the term about arguing 'tactics' from a neutral position. I was not criticising the method of argument, merely describing it.

I agree with what elegran said at 0907.

I don't think AAA was concentrating on the religious element of some barbaric practices, lily. He just mentioned that aspect, which does recur quite frequently in the history of mankind.

'Xtian fear and loathing of their own sexual feelings' thatbags? I could have quoted extensively from any of AAA's posts but I think this one example suggests a certain amount of focus on the religious aspects of the story.

The past is past and the history of it can't be changed. What has been changed is some of the attitudes that were held in the past.

In this country:-

Fixit Jim may have "got away with it" during his lifetime, but others are now nervously waiting for retribution. He fooled Mother Church, among others, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

Alan Turing would not be persecuted here for his sexual orientation, because laws here have been changed (but not everywhere in the world)

Pregnancy as a result of rape can be terminated (again, in this country, not everywhere).

In the UK, "Prisoners give birth in hospital, where since 1996, they should not be shackled during labour" - though in the USA they may still be shackled. ( www.maternityaction.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/prisonsreport.pdf from report addressing the needs of pregnant women, mothers, and babies in prison )

The comments on this thread are from posters at this time and (mostly) in this country. We are not perfect, but we do try, and we should not be silent.

We cannot ignore the religious element in this current barbarity - it is central to what is happening. It is the "main issue." A cruel, mindless and intransigent element in a world religion is inflicting this barbarity on an innocent woman.

I do not know how we influence the perpetrators to behave humanely. As has already been said, pressure from the west may cause them to dig their heels in even more. So what can we do?

Those of a religious persuasion cannot ignore the fact that many of the barbarities in this world are perpetrated in the name of one religion or another. This is not a criticism of individuals who subscribe to a faith, but an observation of fact, which is the central issue in this dreadful case.

AAA - I assume your use of textspeak is not meant to be disrespectful to Christians but is it really much more effort to write Christian instead of Xtian
(assuming that is who you were referring to)
I really hope that this lady is released as soon as possible

I was wondering what Xtian meant...
What a strange abbreviation.

Not any more odd than Xmas when you think of it . I hope this poor woman and her children are released , I must admit to not reading all the thread but am wondering why she is only imprisoned now and not several years ago when she married ? and do the proponents of her incarceration think it is worse to marry a Christian than to have 12 year old girls being married to elderly men of the "Right" "Faith". Not so long ago Irish Catholic girls who chose to marry Protestant boys were thrown out of home and Church