According to this article in The Independent, Meriam Ibrahim has arrived safely in Italy following an anxious month spent in the American embassy in Khartoum. The Italians brought her to safety about a plane owned by the Roman authorities. Concerning the plight of this courageous woman, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi apparently had this to say:
"If there is no European reaction we cannot feel worthy to call ourselves 'Europe.'"
I had begun to lose hope that we would hear such a statement from a European head of state in my lifetime. I know next to nothing about Mr. Renzi, of course, but he is to be commended for his act of mercy, and his public acknowledgement of the injustice that was done to Mrs. Ibrahim.
From this point forward, we might say that no news is good news where Ibrahim and her family are concerned. They will live in hiding for the remainder of their lives, no doubt, but this will be the least of the crosses she has been asked to bear.
Comments (4)
Excellent. I heard it here first! Thanks for keeping up on this, Sage. Who would have expected Italy to step up to the plate like this? Kudos to the Italian PM.
Posted by Lydia | July 24, 2014 3:08 PM
Mark Steyn has a good piece on this story and the sad American response:
Posted by Jeffrey S. | July 25, 2014 2:41 PM
Steyn is always at his best when he is writing that kind of biting prose.
Here's another question: Given the combo of bungling and silence by the American foreign policy bureaucracy, why did they house her in the embassy for a month? Was it just a feeling of shame for having not gotten her out of the mess more adroitly and not having tried harder sooner? Or perhaps are there actually different people involved in deciding whether to let someone hide out in the embassy?
Posted by Lydia | July 25, 2014 4:08 PM
I cannot forget the episode of "Yes, Prime Minister" (BBC @ 1988), in which a British nurse is imprisoned in an Arab country for some minor offense. The Foreign Minister tells the PM, so advised by his Foreign Office, that "nothing can be done for her". A private citizen goes over and meets with officials and gets her out. When the PM calls the Foreign Minister on the carpet for his mistakes, he blandly declares "But if it had been left in the hands of the Foreign Office, it WOULD have been impossible to do anything for her."
It would be good to know WHY, specifically, Obama and his people did nothing for the family for so long. It hardly bears thinking that they simply didn't even ask the question - that kind of ineptness is almost impossible. So, was it sheer unwillingness to help a Christian? Or was it something more in the line of realpolitik where they had other agendas in motion? I suppose we will never know for real, but there's a great story for an enterprising journalist to pry open.
Posted by Tony | July 25, 2014 6:33 PM