Pregnant Sudanese woman sentenced to death for not recanting her Christian faith

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Pregnant Sudanese woman sentenced to death for not recanting her Christian faith
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Meriam Ibrahim is married, eight months pregnant, and the mother of an 18-month-old; on Thursday she was sentenced to death in Sudan.

Her lawyer, Al-Shareef Ali al-Shareef Mohammed, told The Associated Press that Ibrahim, 26, was convicted Sunday of "apostasy" for not recanting her Christian faith. In Sudan, the conversion of Muslims to other religions is punishable by death. Ibrahim's father was Muslim, but her mother — who raised her alone after her father left the family — was an Orthodox Christian from Ethiopia. Members of Ibrahim's father's family told authorities that she was born Muslim and given the name "Afdal" at birth; her lawyer says the document they produced to try to prove this is fake.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.