They did this in a letter to the Sudanese ambassador to New Zealand His Excellency Mr Abd Al Rahim Al Siddig Mohamed Omer, who is resident in Jakarta, Indonesia.

In the letter the Bishops say that the situation of Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, the Christian Sudanese mother recently sentenced to 100 lashes and to death was a matter of grave concern to us and to all New Zealanders.

"A young mother of two children was sentenced to lashing and hanging when provision for the charges brought against her should not exist in the Constitution and are specifically ruled out by Sudan acceding to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."

They have expressed relief that the charges against her have been overturned and that she is free,

But they say the government of Sudan should to remove the charge of apostasy from its penal code in order to align the code with its Constitution and international commitments.

Ms Ibrahim and her family were briefly re-arrested while trying to leave the country for the US before being released again.

Marie Harf, a spokeswoman for the US State Department, said the Sudanese government had informed American officials that Ms Ibrahim and her family were "temporarily detained" over issues relating to their travel documents.

Read Archbishop Dew's letter

Source

• Supplied by the New Zealand Catholic Bishops' Conference
• The independent
• Image: The Independent

It is calling on the government to petition the Sudanese government to immediately release Mariam Ibrahim from imprisonment.

Ibrahim, a Sudanese mother, doctor and a Catholic, has been sentenced to be flogged 200 times and then sentenced to death unless she recants her Christian faith. She is 8 months pregnant and has a two-year-old son.

She is charged with adultery on the grounds that her marriage to a Christian man from South Sudan is considered void under Shari'a law, for which the penalty is flogging. She has also been charged with apostasy, or abandonment of religion, for which she has been sentenced to death.

Right to Life is asking New Zealanders to speak out and to urge the government to join the international community in calling upon the government of Sudan to respect the right to life and Meriam's right to religious freedom.

The United States, the European Union and advocacy groups have strongly condemned the death sentence imposed on Ibrahim.

Source

• Right to life
• Vatican Radio
• Image: d1bghp9m77ju8l.cloudfront.net