Hopefully, the United States and other Western nations that are putting pressure on Khartoum will not be gullible either. Too often, the U.S. government has trusted the promises and declarations of Khartoum, and while the U.S. has acted according to the “carrots” it has promised the Sudan government for good behavior, the regime has failed to honor its promises. Whether the U.S. has offered any incentives to Khartoum to release Ibrahim is not known, but her imprisonment has drawn international outrage.

The Government of Sudan is attempting a public relations outreach (a.k.a. “charm offensive”). Khartoum has been stung by the reaction of the international community to its treatment of Sudanese Christian mother Dr. Meriam Yahya Ibrahim, 27, incarcerated in a Khartoum prison with her 20-month-old son, Martin, and as of May 27, 2014, with her newborn daughter, Maya.  Khartoum’s charm offensives – in which the ruling National Congress Party officials assume a humane veneer, declaring their commitment to peace, always – usually are reserved for the U.S. State Department and Foreign Service personnel, naïve Christian peacemakers, and others afflicted with willful blindness. This tactic of pleasant conversation over cups of cardamom-spiced coffee, cloaking genocide in diplomacy and cultural diversity, has enabled the regime to survive for decades.

The Meriam Ibrahim Offensive began just days after the shocking ruling of Judge Abbas al Khalifia that Dr. Ibrahim be hanged for apostasy. The Sudanese Embassy in Washington, DC released a statement to assuage the concerns of those who heard of the death sentence. In that zany way in which President Omar al Bashir’s government lies and tells the truth simultaneously, the statement declared that “The Case of Mariam is neither religious nor political, it is Legal.” (It omitted the fact that the legal case against Ibrahim is Islamic law, the Shariah. Both Ibrahim’s marriage and her religious faith violate the Shariah.) The statement also reaffirmed the Government of Sudan’s commitment to human rights and freedom of belief, and very prettily thanked “all those who have raised their concern and sympathy on this issue.”

But the international community did not fall for this typical Sudanese diplomacy, not when it comes to shackling a pregnant mom and a toddler to a prison wall to wait for her eventual flogging and hanging. Most rational people around the world do not hear Meriam’s story and think “Oh, a law violator! She must be punished!”

Instead, the world sees the plight of a courageous Christian woman, who has refused to renounce her faith. It sees a little boy shackled in prison with his mother because the Sudanese government will not allow his Christian father to have custody of a child they consider to be Muslim. It sees a tiny baby girl, in squalid, disease-ridden conditions. The world sees a loving husband and father, Daniel Wani, a South Sudanese Christian who made a good life in a new country, and became an American citizen and a biochemist. They see himWani now, separated from his family, suffering from muscular dystrophy, bereft. And so protest letters and petitions condemning Ibrahim’s apostasy sentence continue to land at the Massachusetts Avenue doors of the Sudanese Embassy, and to also wing their way to Khartoum, in spite of the Sudanese government’s efforts to reduce a family tragedy to a “legal issue.”

Therefore, as of Saturday, May 31, the Khartoum regime has gone into a second phase of its charm offensive, hinting coyly that Ibrahim may soon be released. Foreign Ministry Under-Secretary Abdelah Al-Azrak told Reuters News Service that government authorities in the country are “working to release” Ibrahim “through legal measures.”

Al-Azrak also told the BBC that Sudan “guaranteed religious freedom and was committed to protecting the woman.” Oddly, neither Ibrahim’s team of attorneys, nor her husband had been advised of this development before the foreign ministry spoke the news agencies, nor have they been contacted since. The Daily Mail, which has provided some of lead reporting on Ibrahim’s treatment revealed that her lawyers “do not believe the offer is genuine, and is a ploy to silence the growing outcry.”

Speaking to The Telegraph on May 31, Ibrahim’s attorney, Elshareef Ali Mohammed said,

“It’s a statement to silence the international media. This is what the government does. We will not believe that she is being freed until she walks out of the prison.”

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