A Muslim in eastern Uganda burned his 19-year-old daughter with a flat iron on July 21 after learning that she had converted to Christianity, sources said.
Naasike Maliyati of Nampologoma, Butaleja District said she attended an evangelistic crusade with a friend in the course of a visit to her grandmother in Lwangoli, Busoba Sub-County, Mbale District, on July 15.
“When they called people to give their lives to Christ, I also went and prayed to receive Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior,” Maliyati said. “When I went back home, I told my sister that I had left Islam. She went and told our dad of my conversion to Christianity.”
The following Sunday Maliyati, a student at Noor Islamic Institute in Mbale, attended a church service, and upon returning home found her father, 44-year-old Abdulrahim Kutosi, and uncles angry with her, she said.
“They tied me up, beat me, and finally my dad picked up a hot flat iron and hot water and burned me [on the buttocks] and shouted loudly that I was an embarrassment to the family,” Maliyati told Morning Star News. “I was burnt for leaving Islam and converting to Christianity, as my father furiously continued shouting that I had ashamed the family. He continued saying that even Allah is annoyed with me as the pain continued inside my body.”
She heard him order her to stop attending church services before relatives put her on a motorbike and left her near the Namatala River, she said. A Christian on a motorcycle who happened by, Nicolas Ndobooli, rescued her.
“I saw someone yelling for help and calling, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!’” Ndobooli told Morning Star News. “Being a Christian, I decided to stop and took the risk and put her on my motorbike to the clinic.”
He paid 30,000 Uganda shillings (8 USD) to admit her for medical treatment, he said.
Area Christians have condemned Kutosi’s cruel treatment of his daughter, sources said.
The attack was the latest of many instances of persecution of Christians in Uganda that Morning Star News has documented.
Uganda’s constitution and other laws provide for religious freedom, including the right to propagate one’s faith and convert from one faith to another. Muslims make up no more than 12 percent of Uganda’s population, with high concentrations in eastern areas of the country.
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