Posted on 01/18/2004 9:53:34 AM PST by miltonim
SHE is a shy and naïve 16-year-old who, like many girls, was duped into a relationship with a married man by his promises of a brighter future.
But unlike her counterparts in most countries, Intisar Bakri Abdulgader will pay for her mistake in a most horrifying manner unless her story’s impact on the West can save her life.
Abdulgader, from Sudan, is due to face 100 lashes next Friday for having sex outside marriage under the uncompromising Sharia law with which the Islamic Sudanese government rule.
It is more than likely that this public flogging will kill the teenager, a prospect which has left her terrified and unable to eat properly since being sentenced last July.
But as worldwide appeals for a pardon rain down on Sudan, Abdulgader’s plight now presents a dilemma for President Omar al-Bashir, who is keen to rehabilitate his country in the eyes of the world and transform it from a rogue state which once harboured Osama bin Laden to one able to trade with the West, particularly the US.
The country’s powerful religious leaders are insisting on the full implementation of strict Islamic law which stipulates that adultery is punishable with execution by stoning if the offender is married, or by 100 lashes if the offender is not married.
A court in Khartoum imposed the sentence last July, but it was postponed first because Abdulgader was pregnant, and again in December on the grounds of her poor health.
Washington says that it will consider removing Sudan from its list of "state sponsors of terrorism" if a peace deal is reached between the government and the southern rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), who have been waging a civil war for two decades. But Washington also says Khartoum must curb extreme Islamic fundamentalist activities.
Khartoum desperately wants to be taken off the US list of terrorist states so that revenues can flow into its coffers from its oil fields. Under international pressure it reached an agreement with the rebels on January 6 to split the country’s oil wealth, which is mainly in the south. An oil deal with the US is now a distinct possibility.
Last Wednesday the US envoy to Sudan, former senator John Danforth, held talks with Sudanese government officials and southern rebels in the Kenyan town of Naivasha in a new effort to push the two sides to conclude a peace deal.
The US government has been pressing for an agreement before President George W Bush’s State of Union address takes place on Tuesday.
Success in Sudan would benefit Bush’s election ratings because it would demonstrate that he can deal with an Islamic government, while also pleasing Christian groups who are campaigning against the treatment of the Christian southern Sudanese.
Bush has invited al-Bashir and SPLA leader John Garang to Washington to recognise their efforts and has offered to start easing US sanctions on Sudan if an agreement is reached.
Plans are already under way for an international donors conference to be held within one month of a final peace agreement, and the Sudan government hopes that cash for the reconstruction will then flow into the country. "The doors of the country will be opened to investors and to its sons who will return from outside," al-Bashir said.
But there is a long way to go. The warring parties have yet to reach agreement on the administration of three disputed areas in central Sudan: Abyei, the Nuba Mountains and southern Blue Nile. Abyei is the most contentious because of its oil wealth.
At the same time as hopes are rising of a peace agreement in the south, fresh fighting has broken out in Darfur province, where another rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army is fighting for autonomy.
UN officials say that the insurgency has already forced 100,000 people to flee to neighbouring Chad.
Since seizing power in a coup in 1989, al-Bashir has been edging away from the extreme fundamentalist policies that led Sudan to harbour Osama bin Laden. But the National Islamic Front government has close ties with the country’s powerful Islamic establishment.
Under Sudanese law, all who live in northern Sudan, whether Muslim or Christian, fall under the Sudanese Penal Code’s religious law.
Scores of people were sentenced to amputation or flogging last year. Only in the cases of pregnant women is flogging delayed, allowing the opportunity for an appeal. Those accused of offences such as selling without a licence or brewing alcohol are frequently given summary trials and flogged immediately.
Last week Sudan’s Advisory Council on Human Rights discussed with justice minister Ali Mohammed Osman Yassin appeals by international human rights organisations over Abdulgader’s case, and over that of a boy of the same age who has been sentenced to amputation. But the council did not make any recommendation.
At the same time, a leading committee of Sudanese scholars came out against French President Jacques Chirac’s decision to ban girls’ veils in schools, and described those Islamic leaders who had supported Chirac’s decision as a "disgrace".
Sudan’s interior minister, Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein, also bridled at Washington’s demands that the Khartoum offices of Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad should be shut down. "We think they are a group of freedom fighters," he said.
Last September Abdulgader gave birth to a son, Dori, for whom she is now caring. In a recent interview the girl, from a shanty town outside Khartoum, said her mother had tried in vain to get a rickshaw driver called Isam, whom she named as the father, to marry her and sign a statement that he was the father of her child.
"Isam told the court that he did not know me and therefore has never slept with me," Abdulgader said.
One possible loophole in the law is that Abdulgader is the product of a mixed marriage. She was raised a Christian like her mother, even though her father was a Muslim.
Her lawyer, Ismail Abusugrah, said he had appealed to a higher court to reject the verdict on grounds that Abdulgader was a Christian, a fact the judge "seems to have failed to consider during the trial".
Amnesty International is asking for people all over the world to appeal to the Sudanese government for the sentence to be commuted and for cruel punishments to be abolished.
Amnesty’s British media director, Lesley Warner, said: "The Sudanese authorities must not carry out this vicious sentence on a young girl. It is a cruel punishment which completely contravenes basic international human rights law, to which Sudan is a party."
Amputation? The (lower) mind reels.
I wonder how long before Sharia Law is practiced in certain Islamist pockets within Europe and the U.S. (if it isn't already)?
Prayers for this girl.
Cutting off the right hand of a thief has always been the prescribed punishnent in their "culture".
My bet is the Islamic Man is not dead, but the Christian Girl will be punished by Islamic law. I hope she gets free from this, it is not her religion that demands she get whipped. But there is little hope of that, the "Religion of Peace" does not believe in religious freedom, but religious subjugation.
Intisar Bakri Abdulgader
Sudan: 16-year-old Girl to be Flogged for 'Crime' of Adultery
...Amnesty International is calling for the sentence of 100 lashes, passed on a 16-year-old school girl in the Sudanese capital Khartoum for the 'crime' of adultery, to be commuted immediately...
...Intisar Bakri Abdulgader gave birth to a child in September after becoming pregnant outside marriage. She was convicted of adultery and sentenced by a local court in the Khartoum suburb of Kalakla in July when she was seven months pregnant. The sentence was upheld by the appeal court in August. The alleged father of the child has reportedly not been charged but will have a blood test to establish paternity...
Intisar is caring for her four-month-old son, Dori. She is said to be very frightened at the prospect of the punishment and is reportedly eating and sleeping very little.
Sudan's Penal Code
Under article 146 of Sudan's Penal Code, adultery is punishable by execution by stoning if the offender is married, or by one hundred lashes if the offender is not married. Adultery is defined as sexual intercourse with a man without being lawfully bound to him. Although the penal codes are based on an interpretation of Islamic law everyone in the north of Sudan is subject to them. Intisar's family are Christians from the south of Sudan who fled to the north to escape fighting near their home...
"Reigion of Peace" BUMP
Adult males generally, but not always get a pass, as if nobody witnesses the act as rape (4 male witnesses required) it is generally ipso facto considered the woman's fault and she alone is guilty of adultery.
Here is an example:
2002-MAR: Nigeria: Safiya Hussaini, 33, was convicted of adultery. She was sentenced to be buried up to her neck in sand and to be stoned to death. However, her sentence was deferred until her 13-month-old daughter has finished nursing. She appealed her conviction. Her cousin, a Mr. Abubakar allegedly confessed to police that he had sex with her three times. However, the judge dismissed the testimony of the three policemen who witnessed Abubakar's confession, because a minimum of four witnesses are required under Sharia law. Hussaini's lawyers claimed that she also could not be convicted because of the four witness rule. The prosecution argued that witnesses were not required in her case; adultery had obviously taken place because she had become pregnant. Her defense team finally argued that, under Islamic law, the interval between conception and birth can be up to seven years! Only two years previous to the birth of her daughter, she was still married to her husband. The lawyers argued that her husband could possibly have been the father. Commenting on the conviction, Aliyu Abubakar Sanyinna, the attorney general of Sokoto State, said: "Society is injured by her act. The danger is that it will teach other women to do the same thing." 9 Mansur Ibrahim Said, Dean of the Law Faculty at Dakar University in Sokoto said that adultery is "an abomination abhorred by God and society because of the example it gives and because it creates bastards to be rejected by society."
However, once in a great while, a man admits fault, has enough witnesses arrayed against him, and gets punished. Here are two examples
2002-JUN: Nigeria: A Sharai court convicted a man, Yunusa Rafin Chiwaya, of adultery in the northern state of Bauchi, and sentenced him to be stoned to death. He had confessed to engaging in sexual activities with his neighbor's wife, and had declined multiple opportunities to withdraw his confession. The woman in the case was cleared after she swore on the Qur'an that she had been hypnotized before she left home with Chiwaya.
2002-AUG-25: Nigeria: he Upper Sharia court in the northern state of Niger has sentenced two people to be stoned to death. Ahmadu Ibrahim, 32, and his lover Fatima Usman had confessed to pre-marital sex. They have 30 days in which to appeal the sentence.
Note, there is a "confession" by the male in each case. However, the burden of proof is on the woman to show she is not guilty. For the man, he either must be caught in the act (the 4 man rule) or confess outright with sufficient witnesses, and not recant his testimony.
*(cites are from http://www.religioustolerance.org/isl_adul1.htm)
Nice legal system, eh?
What more do you expect from a religion that promotes gender and religious apartheid while glorifying a rapist and pedophile as a prophet. This man mearly follows the example Muhhammed set with Ayesha and Safiyah.
WHY DOESNT the US stand up for this girl ,she should be allowed to immigrate to this country, hell I would take her in, and I am sure there are others that feel the same, where in the hell is jesse jackson or al sharpton.
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