Meriam Ibrahim: Baby Disabled Due to Authorities Failing to Remove Leg Shackles During Birth

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent

KHARTOUM, SUDAN (Worthy News)-- The Sudanese woman who gave birth in a Khartoum prison while in chains said her baby daughter is disabled as a result of her treatment, according to CNN.

Meriam Ibrahim was sentenced to hang for apostasy back on May 15 while she was pregnant with her second child. But when she was about to give birth to Maya, prison authorities refused to remove the shackles on her legs.

"I gave birth chained," she said. "Not cuffs, but chains on my legs! I couldn't open my legs so the women had to lift me off the table."

As a result, Ibrahim said her daughter has been left physically disabled.

"I don't know in the future whether she'll need support to walk or not," she said.

Ibrahim's ordeal began before Christmas when she was denounced to the authorities by her own brother for having "abandoned" Islam. But Ibrahim told the court she was raised as a Christian by her Ethiopian Christian mother after her Muslim father abandoned the family when she was only six years old.

"I've always been Christian," she told CNN. "I couldn't have been Muslim."