A report from a ministry director who has been monitoring the case of a 17-year-old girl who abandoned Islam to become a Christian says a ruling today declared her to be a dependent of the state of Ohio, meaning she will not be returned to her Muslim parents.
 Attorney Angela M. Lloyd listens to Rifqa Bary at Dec. 22 hearing (Photo: Columbus Dispatch |
The word comes from Jamal Jivanjee, director of the non-profit ministry Illuminate, who dispatched an e-mail to supporters after today's hearing for Rifqa Bary.
Jivanjee, a former Muslim himself, described the result as "great news."
"This afternoon … Rifqa Bary was declared a dependent of the state of Ohio," he reported. "This is very good news for Rifqa because it ensures that she will remain in foster care until she is 18.
"This protects her from being forced to return to her parent's home. Apparently, Rifqa's parents realized that they were not going to win the dependency case should it have [gone] to trial. The dependency trial that was scheduled for January 28th is now cancelled. In exchange for dependency, Rifqa agreed that she violated rules by fleeing her home," he said.
He said the teen still needs the prayers of the Christian community to be allowed to contact people she chooses as well as for "personal protection."
"There have been numerous death threats made against her life because she left Islam to become a follower of Jesus," he wrote.
The hearing was scheduled to consider various motions in the case, including a request to move Bary to a new foster home for her own security.
Rifqa Bary's lawyers, who are barred by the court from discussing the case, have been criticized by many of her supporters for not making Islam a bigger issue in the case.
Author and Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer and blogger Pamela Geller assert the case is inescapably about the religious beliefs of her parents and the local mosque that pressured them to abide by Islam's deadly intolerance for conversion.
Rifqa Bary has reported her father, Mohamed Bary, threatened her life after learning of her conversion. She says she became a Christian four years ago. When her parents began preparing to move the family back to Sri Lanka, she sought refuge with a Florida pastor and his wife after connecting with them on the social networking site Facebook.com. The Barys reported their daughter missing to Columbus, Ohio, police July 19, then tracked her down in Orlando.
Before her case was moved from Florida to Ohio, court documents linked a mosque near the family's home to allegations of terrorism finance.Sharia
While in Orlando, Rifqa explained her plight in an interview with WFTV.
"If I had stayed in Ohio, I wouldn't be alive," she said. "In 150 generations in [my] family, no one has known Jesus. I am the first – imagine the honor in killing me."
She explained there is "great honor in that, because if they love Allah more than me, they have to do it. It's in the Quran."
Prominent Islamic scholars, including Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, have asserted the Islam's holy book, the Quran, teaches that rejection of Islam must be punished by death.
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