International Christian Concern | August 2014

Your Bridge to the Persecuted Church

THE SOFT WAR AGAINST AFRICA’S CHRISTIANS

A Deafening Silence Boko abducts 240 girls (90% Christian). How did the Press miss this?

“We’re Going To Kill You If You Don’t Deny Your Faith”

Bits On BokoWhat they won’t tell you about Boko Haram

A Christian I Will RemainThe perseverance of Meriam Ibrahim

PERSECUTION

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INTERNATIONAL CHRIS TIAN CONCERN

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A Christian I Will Remain!

Every day, as regional managers, we get to work with people who desperately need help but are willing to give up their lives rather then give up Jesus. And an amazing testament to that willingness to pay the ultimate price for the gospel is Meriam Ibrahim. A mother of two, and wife to an American citizen, Meriam chose Christ, thinking it would cost her ev-erything.

To me, she is the face of persecution for Africa’s Christians. She is not a victim of Boko Haram but rather a victim of Sudan’s radical Islamist government. Their fanaticism led them to imprison a pregnant mother and her two-year-old son. They then forced her to give birth in prison shackled to a gurney. She could have been set free at any time by turning away from Jesus, but at her sentencing, when asked if she would turn to Islam, she told the judge, “I am a Christian, and a Christian I will remain.”

Based on actual events in her case, I’ve chosen to narrate Meriam’s story to capture the boldness of her faith amidst the plight of Christians in Sudan.

She lay shackled to the floor, birthing her second child, lost in pain in a windowless Sudanese prison cell. Overcome with labor pain, she stretched out her arm, searching for the absent hand of her vacant husband who was barred from wit-nessing the birth of their child who was destined to grow-up an orphan because she had been forced to choose between Christ, and her children.

Four months ago, the dream life she had enjoyed descended into nightmare. She was a doctor, blessed with a husband, toddler son, and pregnant with a baby daughter, when Sudan’s Public Order Police knocked on their family’s door.

In a whirlwind of shock and confusion, Meriam and her then-18-month old son, Martin, were arrested, herded into a vehicle and sped toward the horizon. Through caged win-dows, they peered back as their home, their father/husband, and their lives faded into the clouds of kicked-up dust, swirl-ing lazily, as if tired by the heat of the Sudanese sun.

Following the arrest, it was hard to console Martin, her two- year-old son. For weeks, he had been forced to play with other children likewise sickened by the diseased prison air as his mother watched on in shackles. It was even harder to hide her tears from him, bottling them up until after dark, when she could finally set them free to slide across the shad-ows cast on her face by the window’s moonlit bars. Those bars that not only kept her in, but the eyes of the world out.

The heat of the day in the crowded group cell flooded Meriam with memories of growing up in the deserts of west Sudan. As a child, she spent hours carving lines in the bleached sand with her hands, feet and soul, lost in the creativity of her

Cameron Thomas, Regional Manager

Meriam, Daniel, and older son Martin

youth, waiting for her father’s stern voice to draw her back to the burdens of reality. But then, his voice ceased to ring across the expanse, and when she was six, like her husband had not so many days ago, her father had faded into the dis-tance.

On the fourth of March, he was back. The guards had come to escort Meriam and Martin back behind the caged win-dows to watch Khartoum pass by in a washed-out blur. It’d been nearly a month since she’d been in broad daylight, and brightness pained her eyes as she squinted to make out the sights and sounds of what was a very long time ago called, “the Paris of Africa.” The fresh air felt good to breathe deep into her lungs as she sat in wait of her judge and prosecution. One and the same, really, she would come to find.

In her first appearance before a court following her arrest, Meriam was presented with charges of adultery and apos-tasy. In a dazed silence, Meriam listened on as her accusers weaved for the court a tale of the childhood she had explored so many times in the long days of her detention. Addressing “his Excellency,” the prosecution told of Meriam’s righ-teous upbringing as the faithful daughter of a Muslim father wholeheartedly devoted to Allah until her criminal conver-sion to Christianity and adulterous marriage to Daniel Wani, by which she had conceived two children.

Her legal defense team pleaded her innocence at her hearing but Meriam’s attention drifted through the window’s sun-lit bars onto the fields of her farm where she, Daniel and Martin danced freely in a dream world to the rhythm of a gavel pounding. When the gavel stopped, she opened her eyes to a different world. Without a single testimony in her defense, the trial had ended and it was time to return to the prison’s darkness.

The process became routine. The bright pain of the ride to the courthouse, the twisted account of her childhood deliv-ered by lawyers she had never met and the stillness of the gavel after injustice had been served. The outcomes of these daytrips, piled one on top of the other, placed such a weight on Meriam she began to find it hard to breathe, to think, to hope. But it was Him alone that could make this burden light, Him alone who could make this yoke easy.

And so, on the day of her sentencing, she watched and lis-tened to a cleric begging for her to return to the religion of her birth, to once again practice Islam, she called on the Lord for strength. And, lifting the burden, He filled her lungs with the breath of Heaven so that she could speak for every Christian oppressed for their faith in Sudan.

Shifting her eyes to meet those of her judger, Meriam took up her cross and claimed the name of Christ, saying, “I am a

Christian, and a Christian I will remain.”The courtroom shook with fury, incensed that a then-preg-nant mother would deny the religion of her father, forsake the counsel of the clerics and embrace the fate of the noose for the God of the Bible. Meriam sat, a beads of sweat and tears mixed on her cheeks just like the emotions that produced them. It was hard to process the implications of her words in the moment. The joy of affirming her faith in Christ, and the horror of knowing she may pay the ultimate price for it, overwhelmed her. It was all she could do to sit still against the commotion of the flustered courtroom, and to stare at the table weighed down with the proof of her innocence.

The pain of the labor subsided with the sight of her newborn daughter, Maya. With her baby in her arms, her heart broke as she remembered that only 12 days ago, in a courtroom, she had chosen to die rather than deny Christ. The thought of this precious girl being raised motherless weighed on her, confusing the overwhelming love she felt staring down at her beautiful daughter. Christ must overcome she thought .

For months she’d been receiving reports from her husband and lawyers that the world was calling for her release. It was hard to believe that beyond the walls of her every day was a world watching, waiting anxiously for her to walk through those gates, from darkness into the light, from chains to free-dom. But in Christ, all things are possible and that in all things, He works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.

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Meriam with baby Maya, born in prison

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ICC’s early reporting on Meriam and getting Amnesty Intl. and two Congressmen to put out statements on the case caused the case to “blow up” and go international. This level of international condemnation ultimately created enough pressure on Sudan to want to release her. Here’s a list of all our work on Meriam’s behalf.

02/17/2014 Meriam arrested

03/04/2014 Meriam charged with adultery and apostasy

04/20/2014 ICC receives first report of Meriam’s case

04/28/2014 ICC First Reports on Meriam’s Arrest, Detention and Charges

05/05/2014 ICC Issues Call To Action: Requests phone calls to Sudanese Embassies around the world

05/05/2014 1st ICC Press Release: ICC Calls on Sudanese Gov. to “Release Christian Mother on Death Row”

05/08/2014 ICC Alerts Amnesty International to Meriam’s Case

05/11/2014 Meriam is convicted of adultery and apostasy and given 3 days to turn to Islam to avoid a death sentence

05/11/2014 2nd ICC Press Release: Pregnant Mother Convicted of Apostasy by Sudanese Court as U.S. Celebrates Mother’s Day

05/13/2014 Amnesty International verifies ICC’s facts on Meriam’s case. Amnesty issues urgent call to action to followers

05/13/2014 ICC confirms case with and requests Rep. Trent Franks & Rep. Frank Wolf issue PR’s

05/13/2014 Congressman Franks issues first PR by member of Congress. PR is picked up and retweeted to 1.43 million followers by New York Times

5/14/2014 Congressman Frank Wolf issues PR on Meriam’s case

5/15/2014 Islamic cleric pressures Meriam at sentencing hearing to renounce Christianity & accept Islam. She responds “I am a Christian, and I will remain a Christian.” Judge calls her stubborn and sentences her to death by hanging.

05/15/2014 ICC Issues Article: Hanging a Mother for Her Faith: Why the Government of Sudan Plans to Execute A Christian Mother For Her Faith, and What You Can Do to Help Save Her

05/15/2014 ICC Issues 3rd Press Release: Representatives Franks & Wolf Speak Out Regarding Conviction

05/15/2014 State Department issues statement: “deeply disturbed” by court ruling against Meriam

05/15/2014 White House NSC issues statement “strongly condemning” sentence on Meriam

5/16/2014 ICC briefs Senator

Roy Blunt’s office on Meriam’s Case. Sen. Blunt & Sen. Ayotte send first letter to Sec. Kerry regarding Meriam

05/20/2014 ICC Issues Case Resource Page: Everything You Need to Know Regarding Meriam Yahia Ibrahim’s Case

05/21/2014 Senator Blunt & Senator Ayotte issue first PR in Senate on Meriam’s Case

05/22/2014 ICC Issues Petition:Petition Calling for the Immediate and Unconditional Release of Meriam Yahia Ibrahim

5/27/2014 Meriam gives birth to baby daughter Maya while shackled. Martin, Meriam’s 20-month-old son and baby Maya remain imprisoned with Meriam. Meriam & family are moved to a new room with a bed and air conditioning after public pressure.

05/27/2014 ICC Issues 4th Press Release: Christian Mother On Death Row for Her Faith Forced to Give Birth in Sudanese Prison

05/29/2014 ICC contacts 320 congressional staff to encourage co-sponsorship of H. Res 601 condemning Meriam Ibrahim’s death sentence. Resolution receives 61 co-sponsors

05/30/2014 Rep. Trent Franks issues follow up PR, publicly questions Secretary of Homeland Security, at hearing on what DHS is doing to assist Meriam and her family

06/12/2014 ICC coordinates and hosts major demonstration in front of White House on behalf of Meriam. ICC solicits attendance/co-sponsorship from major NGO’s,

ICC’S MERIAM TIMELINE:

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Above: ICC’s Facebook post on Meriam’s release viewed by 730,000+ viewers.

Senators, Members of Congress, major media outlets. Senator Ted Cruz and Rep. Trent Franks attend. Media coverage includes Fox News, Time Magazine, Huffington Post, CBN, Christian Post, Charisma, Religion News Service, World Magazine

06/12/2014 Sec. of State John Kerry issues personal statement condemning “Sudanese conviction and continued imprisonment of Meriam Ishag”

06/13/2014 ICC hosts follow-up demonstration at Sudanese Embassy in Washington D.C. Police escort ICC into embassy to deliver ICC petition, Sudanese ambassador instructs staff not to accept petition

06/19/2014 Member Letter

with 38 signers promoted by ICC is sent to Sec. Kerry urging him to prioritize Meriam’s case06/23/2014 Sudanese court overturns Meriam’s conviction. She is released with Martin & Maya

06/24/2014 Daniel, Meriam, Martin, and Maya are arrested at the airport in Khartoum by the NISS (National Intelligence & Security Services), also dubbed the “Agents of Fear” by Amnesty International

6/28/14 Meriam and family released again from police custody, take refuge in U.S. Embassy. At time of writing, Meriam and family are safe in U.S. Embassy, but blocked by Sudanese government from leaving the country.

Below: ICC coordinated and hosted a protest on behalf of Meriam at the White House. Sen. Cruz and Rep Franks speaking.

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