Sudanese authorities re-arrested Meriam Ibrahim, a Christian woman sentenced to death for converting from Islam, only to be released on Monday. She was reportedly detained with her husband and two children at Khartoum airport, local media reports.
A security official told Reuters that he did know the reason for the re-arrest of the 27-year-old woman. One of her lawyers said Ibrahim and her family are being held at a security building just outside the airport.
Her lawyer, Elshareef Mohammed, who was with Ibrahim at Khartoum airport at the time of the arrest, told the Guardian more than 40 National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) officers took part in the operation to apprehend the family, who were headed for the United States. Ibrahim’s husband, Daniel Wani, is a US citizen.
"It's very disappointing," Elshareef told the Guardian. "They were very angry. They took us [the family's lawyers] outside, and took the family to a NISS detention center. They have not been given access to lawyers."
She was originally arrested in August after men claiming to be from her father’s side of the family accused her of adultery because of her marriage to a Christian man, Amnesty International said. Ibrahim, who said she had been raised as a Christian, was later charged with apostasy. The court recognized her as having the same faith as her father, who was a Muslim. Ibrahim, however, said her father had abandoned the family when she was six, and was therefore not brought up in the Muslim faith.
Ibrahim’s marriage was ultimately annulled and she was sentenced to 100 lashes for adultery. In May, she was given three days to return to the Muslim faith or face the death penalty. Worldwide attention around Ibrahim, who was pregnant when the sentence was handed down, intensified after she was forced to give birth to her daughter while shackled to the floor of her prison cell.
More than 1 million people backed a campaign by Amnesty International to free her, and world leaders also took up her cause.
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