Sudan: Meriam Ibrahim

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what actions they have taken to secure the release of Meriam Ibrahim, sentenced to death for apostasy in Sudan, and to promote the terms of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and other senior Ministers have condemned the sentence against Meriam Ibrahim in the strongest terms. We have raised our concerns with Sudanese Ministers and formally summoned the Sudanese chargé d’affaires in London. We urge Sudan to uphold its international obligations on freedom of religion by reversing this decision.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. In a week in which we are focused on violence against women, is not the cruel treatment of Meriam Ibrahim—sentenced to 100 lashes to be followed by execution, and shackled while giving birth—emblematic of a regime which, from Darfur to South Kordofan, systematically murders and mistreats its own people? While I greatly welcome the Prime Minister’s condemnation of those medieval and tainted laws, is it not time that we exposed the hypocrisy of countries such as Sudan that sign up to the 1948 declaration of human rights, especially to Article 18, yet honour it only in its breach and treat their citizens in this barbaric way? Should we not be offering Meriam Ibrahim and her two little ones immediate refugee status, unequivocally demonstrating the value of a civilised country and a humane society?

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear.