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Why religious freedom matters and what you can do

Nada & Hamouda and their children aren’t the only ones in need of help

They were imprisoned, prosecuted, and threatened with death for converting to Christianity in Sudan. Today, they’re free; free to worship, and free from persecution. How? Find out below:

Global Religious Freedom: A Sudanese Story

Religious freedom matters because it’s fundamental and because lives are at stake. These Christians are living proof.

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Free to practice their faith without fear for their lives

Nada & Hamouda were imprisoned, prosecuted, and threatened with death for converting to Christianity in Sudan.

We supported their legal defence & orchestrated the family’s rescue. “We are overjoyed that Nada, Hamouda, & their children are now able to practise their faith without fear for their lives. After facing imminent risk of death in Sudan, they are now looking forward to celebrating Christmas in their new home, alongside their new community & church family,”  said ADF International’s Kelsey Zorzi.

We’re committed to providing the strongest legal defence for the persecuted Church, & we will continue to seek justice for those like Nada & Hamouda who are unjustly punished for their faith.

They were both Muslim when they married in 2016. When Hamouda converted to Christianity in 2018, Nada’s family exerted threats against her and applied pressure for her and her children to abandon Hamouda and return to live with her family. At the time, Sudan’s penal code included apostasy as a crime worthy of the death penalty. 

In 2020, apostasy was decriminalized in Sudan. Shortly thereafter, in 2021, Nada converted to Christianity and returned home to Hamouda with their children.

However, after Hamouda’s conversion to Christianity, the Sharia court dissolved his and Nada’s marriage, deeming it unlawful for a Muslim woman to be married to a Christian man. It was on the basis of their reunification as a family, that their marriage was deemed unlawful. They were then prosecuted.

It became clear that if we lost the case, the punishment they faced could result in death. And if we won the case, Nada’s brother had publicly vowed to kill them himself.

We knew we had to activate our networks to get them safely out of Sudan as quickly as possible.

By God’s grace and your generosity, they’re free today.

Make a global impact and support the persecuted

Nada and Hamouda join four other brave young men and women — from Nigeria — with restored rights because of the overwhelming generosity of our supporters and allied lawyers on the ground across Africa.

But many more like them need urgent help.

Defend Religious Freedom with us

Religious freedom matters because it's fundamental and lives are at stake. Let's defend it worldwide — make a gift today!

Nada and Hamouda join four other brave young men and women — from Nigeria — with restored rights because of the overwhelming generosity of our supporters and allied lawyers on the ground across Africa. But many more like them need urgent help.

That’s why we need to act today. The challenges facing the Church are not bound by borders. But we are determined to overcome.

When you support ADF International, you contribute to the success of law and culture-shifting work.

Will you join us? Give today to help abolish often-deadly blasphemy laws and fight back against sham trials.

Many efforts to raise awareness about persecution and provide humanitarian relief have existed for decades. But there was no coordinated legal assistance to aid Christians and other religious minorities facing persecution worldwide.

That’s why we built our alliance of lawyers on the ground: to fill the gap of legal representation for the persecuted.

Meet the four young Nigerian Christians we helped set free

Faith, Hannah, Elijah, and Barbara don’t know each other but their stories have two things in common: suffering, then freedom. Three are converts to Christianity, but all are young. And because of their faith, they faced the potential for religious violence and persecution. Even death.

Hannah was sued before the Sharia Court and her life was threatened because she did not convert to Islam, choosing to follow Jesus instead. Faith was evicted from her home because of her faith and then accused of apostasy before the Sharia Court. Elijah faced death threats from his own family after his conversion. Then his family sought the death penalty at the Sharia Court.

Barbara was displaced to Cameroon where she converted to Christianity and remarried after her husband divorced her. When they returned to Nigeria, the ex-husband sued on grounds of “adultery”. The judge ordered they be sent to prison pending their hearings.

Through the expedient work of the local lawyers ADF International supported in Nigeria, these young Christians were set free. However, these aren’t the only Christians in danger. 

Together with other religious minorities in Nigeria, the persecution of Christians in Nigeria is especially severe. Worldwide, over 5,500 Christians were killed for their faith last year. Of those, 90% were Nigerian.   

Blasphemy laws in Nigeria

Blasphemy accusations also can lead to brutal mob violence. In May 2022, Christian student Deborah Emmanuel Yakubu was stoned and beaten to death, and her body burnt, by her Muslim classmates in Sokoto State after they accused her of blasphemy for thanking Jesus for helping her pass an exam. Another Christian woman, Rhoda Jatau, condemned the violence against Yakubu on social media, and subsequently faced death threats, mob violence. ADF International is supporting Jatau’s case. She is now safe in undisclosed location while she awaits trial, still facing up to 5 years imprisonment. 

The cases of Rhoda Jatau and Deborah Emmanuel Yakubu are but two examples of the widespread violence against religious minorities, including Christians in Northern Nigeria, prevalent in Nigeria today.  

The criminalisation of blasphemy in Nigeria carries with it dangerous implications for the country as a whole. In a country of more than 200 million, split nearly evenly between Christians and Muslims, blasphemy laws are a significant driver of societal tensions. These laws punish the innocent for expressing their beliefs, silence people from sharing their faith, and perpetuate societal violence. Blasphemy laws throughout Nigeria encourage brutal mob violence and inflict severe harm on minority Muslims, Christian converts, and others.  

ADF International also is supporting the legal defence of Nigerian musician Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, a Sufi Muslim who was sentenced to death by hanging for sharing song lyrics that were deemed “blasphemous” on WhatsApp. With the support of ADF International, Yahaya is appealing his case to the Supreme Court of Nigeria in the hopes of overturning the death penalty blasphemy laws in Nigeria. Yahaya remains in prison awaiting his appeal. Yahaya has been imprisoned for over three and a half years. 

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