Young Christian beaten, shackled to tree.
NAIROBI, Kenya, June 15
(CDN) -
The Muslim
parents of a 17-year-old Somali girl who converted to Christianity
severely beat her for leaving Islam and have regularly shackled her to a
tree at their home for more than a month, Christian sources said.
Nurta
Mohamed Farah of Bardher, Gedo Region in southern Somalia, has been
confined to her home since May 10, when her family found out that she
had embraced Christianity, said a Christian leader who visited the area.
"When the woman's family found out that she converted to
Christianity, she was beaten badly but insisted on her new-found
religion," said the source on condition of anonymity.
Her parents also took her to a
doctor who prescribed medication for a "mental illness," he said.
Alarmed by her determination to keep her faith, her father, Hassan Kafi
Ilmi, and mother, Hawo Godane Haf, decided she had gone crazy and forced
her to take the prescribed medication, but it had no effect in swaying
her from her faith, the source said.
Traditionally, he
added, many Somalis believe the Quran cures the sick, especially the
mentally ill, so the Islamic scripture is continually recited to her
twice a week.
"The girl is very sick and undergoing intense
suffering," he said.
Her suffering began after she
declined her family's offer of forgiveness in exchange for renouncing
Christianity, the source said. The confinement began after the
medication and punishments failed.
The tiny, shaken
Christian community in Gedo Region reports that the girl is shackled to a
tree by day and is put in a small, dark room at night, he said.
"There
is little the community can do about her condition, which is very bad,
but I have advised our community leader to keep monitoring her condition
but not to meddle for their own safety," the source told Compass. "We
need prayers and human advocacy for such inhuman acts, and for freedom
of religion for the Somali people."
Somalia's Transitional
Federal Government generally did not enforce protection of religious
freedom found in the Transitional Federal Charter, according to the U.S.
Department of State's 2009 International Religious Freedom Report.
"Non-Muslims who practiced their religion openly faced
occasional societal harassment," the report stated. "Conversion from
Islam to another religion was considered socially unacceptable. Those
suspected of conversion faced harassment or even death from members of
their community."
