Meriam's case 'the tip of an iceberg'

The case of Meriam Ibrahim, the mother of two young children sentenced to death in Sudan because she is a Christian and her father was a Muslim, is only the tip of a very big and ugly iceberg. The overwhelming majority of people in the West remain woefully ignorant of the sufferings of non-Muslims under Islam.

So says Raymond Ibrahim, journalist and author, here.

(Meriam, who had her convictions overturned on appeal after an international outcry and was set free on Monday, was re-arrested at Khartoum Airport on Tuesday.)

Ibrahim quotes the cases of a number of Christians set free from the condemned cell after international protest, like pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, freed after three years under sentence of death in Iran, Abdul Rahman, freed from the death cell in Afghanistan, and 14-year-old Rimsha Masih, freed from sentence of death in Pakistan.

Rahman was released under the pretext that he was mentally retarded, although most sources indicated he was quite sane, and Masih was portrayed as mentally retarded prior to her release. This, says Ibrahim, is because Islamic law says the insane are not responsible for their actions.

The point is that these cases were reported by the mainstream media, and the resulting international outrage made these Christians too much of a liability to punish as sharia requires. But thanks to the mainstream media's general indifference, there are countless more Christian "blasphemers" and "apostates" rotting on death row in all three countries, not to mention all around the Islamic world, whose cases are not reported on. 

If the mainstream media reported more on the sufferings of Christians under Islam, says Ibrahim, their lot would likely improve.