Rights activists concerned over sending mothers to gallows

Sentencing women, who have just given birth to their babies, to death has been on the minds of human rights advocates in Egypt for long. A few days ago, these activists decided to speak out against the practice and even called for abolishing articles in the law that allow for it."Articles in the law that allow for sentencing new mothers to death are totally inhuman,” said Abdullah Khalil, a human rights expert. "Women must be given the chance to breast-feed their children," he added.According to the Islamic law or Sharia, a child must be breast-fed for two successive years. Muslim clerics say this is a period of time during which children get enough feeding from their mothers. Over the past few years, there have been cases of women who were sentenced to death after they gave birth.This shocked many activists who warned against the costly human and social effect of such a practice. The experts who gathered in Cairo at the weekend called for the application of the Islamic law to women with babies on the death row. They said these babies might be given a proper chance to be fed by their mothers.According to Egyptian law, rapists and premeditated killers are punished by death. For a criminal to be sentenced to death, the Mufti, this country's leading Muslim authority, must endorse the ruling. The experts who gathered at the seminar organised by the State-backed National Human Council for Rights in conjunction with the Spanish Embassy, urged for revoking articles in the law that give the Government the authority to detain citizens without a court order. "How can the Government accept to detain citizens without court orders and then let them free without even apologising for them?” asked Ahmed Kamal Abul Magd, the deputy chairman of the National Council for Human Rights.