Freed Sudanese drew Cotton, Pryor focus

In this photo provided by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Francis meets Meriam Ibrahim, from Sudan, holding her daughter Maya, at the Vatican, Thursday, July 24, 2014. Pope Francis met privately Thursday with a Sudanese woman who refused to recant her Christian faith in the face of a death sentence, blessing the woman as she cradled her infant daughter born just weeks ago in prison. The Vatican characterized the visit with Meriam Ibrahim, 27, her husband and their two small children as "very affectionate." The 30-minute encounter took place just hours after the family landed at Rome's Ciampino airport, accompanied by an Italian diplomat who helped negotiate her release, and welcomed by Italy's premier, who hailed it as a "day of celebration." (AP Photo/L'Osservatore Romano, File)
In this photo provided by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Pope Francis meets Meriam Ibrahim, from Sudan, holding her daughter Maya, at the Vatican, Thursday, July 24, 2014. Pope Francis met privately Thursday with a Sudanese woman who refused to recant her Christian faith in the face of a death sentence, blessing the woman as she cradled her infant daughter born just weeks ago in prison. The Vatican characterized the visit with Meriam Ibrahim, 27, her husband and their two small children as "very affectionate." The 30-minute encounter took place just hours after the family landed at Rome's Ciampino airport, accompanied by an Italian diplomat who helped negotiate her release, and welcomed by Italy's premier, who hailed it as a "day of celebration." (AP Photo/L'Osservatore Romano, File)

WASHINGTON — After more than a year in prison, a woman on death row in Sudan for refusing to convert from Christianity was blessed by Pope Francis on Thursday hours after leaving her home country.

U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and several other members of the U.S. House and Senate had proposed legislation or resolutions calling for Sudan to release Meriam Ibrahim from death row and allow her, her husband, who is an American citizen, and her two young children to come to the United States.

None of the seven pieces of legislation were approved by both chambers before her release. The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee held a hearing Wednesday on how the U.S. could help her.

Wednesday evening the family flew to Rome with the Italian foreign minister. The family was blessed by the pope and remained in Rome on Thursday afternoon, according to The Associated Press.

Ibrahim’s father is Muslim, but she was raised by a Christian mother and has said she was never a Muslim.

According to the AP, Ibrahim was sentenced to death over charges of apostasy, or abandonment of religious belief. In 2011, she married Daniel Wani, a Christian. Muslim women in Sudan are prohibited from marrying non-Muslims.

In late June, she was released from prison but detained at the airport before she and her family could leave. Ibrahim and her family had reportedly been staying at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, but State Department spokesmen wouldn’t confirm the family’s location for safety reasons.

Cotton said he learned about Ibrahim in the news and that several constituents called him about her imprisonment.

“They were outraged that this woman who is married to an American citizen, whose child is presumptively American and who was at the time seven, eight, nine months pregnant, was being held strictly for being a Christian and subject to execution,” Cotton said. “They were demanding that their government take action.”

Cotton said he filed the bill because he felt the State Department wasn’t doing enough.

“At the height of the controversy in Sudan, I felt that our State Department was not moving expeditiously enough because of potential questions about Meriam’s citizenship, despite her marriage to an American citizen and [the] presumptive citizenship of her child, so I wanted to eliminate that as a possibility for their foot-dragging,” he said.

U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., who Cotton is challenging in the November election, also worked to aid Ibrahim, Pryor’s spokesman Lucy Speed said.

Pryor and other senators worked with the State Department through phone calls, meetings and briefings over the past few months to secure Ibrahim’s release, Speed said.

“He supported a Senate-passed resolution, which condemned the death sentence against her. He did not co-sponsor the legislation introduced in the Senate because he did not want to jeopardize sensitive diplomatic efforts to secure her release that were underway,” she said.

Cotton’s staff members said they were told by the State Department that the Ibrahims had not signed a privacy release allowing the department to disclose details about their plans, so it is unclear when or if they plan to travel to the United States.

Cotton said he saw Ibrahim as representative of persecution of Christians around the world, something he said saw firsthand while deployed with the Army in Baghdad in 2006.

“Churches were being desecrated or destroyed, and Christians were being driven from their homes or persecuted themselves,” he said.

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